What Little Remains
by Khapitan
Summary: Heaven has re-claimed Castiel; they tell Sam and Dean: "Do not look. You will not find." and the brothers are utterly helpless to save him from his fate. But then Cas is dropped in front of them, a beaten broken thing. And suddenly they're faced with unholy angels, self-righteous demons, and a whole ugly mess in between. (Post 8x10, hurt!cas, angst, bamf!cas, TFW)
1. Without a Prayer

**What Little Remains**

'He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.'

**Without a Prayer**

The house is a war zone

Dean and Sam stand rooted to the spot. Across Dean's face blood slowly trickles, running sluggishly down to drip to the floor. Sam's ribs are broken, his breath comes out in a wheeze. Neither of them care. In the life they live this is barely noticeable, can be considered more common-place than unusual.

They only care about Castiel.

'Let him go, you dick!' Dean supplies. He may have well tried to command the sun for all the good it would have done.

'Dean Winchester,' she intones, a coy smile playing her face. 'Enough of your anger, you have no power here.'

'Let him go!' Sam echoes.

They don't know who she is, they don't know why she's here, but with a sharp snap of her hand Sam's leg collapses and he bites back a cry of pain. Dean makes a move towards her, never one for thinking, but is stopped by Sam's to-tight grip on his arm. Neither take their eyes off of her though, she stares them down but they wont crack, wont give her the satisfaction of looking away.

They don't know who she is, they don't know why she's here, but they know she's an angel.

She raises her hand again.

'Naomi!' Castiel gasps.

She turns to him then, stern and gentle, beautiful and horrifying. He would have said more, they all know that, but he can't control his voice over his wrenching gasps. There are two other angels, robotic puppets filled with heavens intent, who each grip one of Castiel's arms. His hands hang uselessly in the air, white and bloodstained under his detainees' grip. Even if he had the strength to try and struggle he wouldn't be able to move. So instead he kneels on the floor and blinks rapidly through the blood in his eyes.

'You were warned, Castiel,' she soothes. 'You knew the consequences.'

Castiel opens his mouth to speak but only moans feebly instead. His face screws up and his eyes un-focus, it's all so pathetically human. The angel - Naomi, they now know - kneels fluidly before him and presses a perfect hand to Castiel's blood soaked chest. It seems to calm him, like she's holding back the flood.

'For me, not them,' Castiel finally manages to answer. Its a plea.

'Cas!' Dean barks, because he doesn't understand anything.

Naomi tilts her head, twitch her lips into a smile that is nothing but control. 'You will stop fighting now,' and the question mark is implied rather than said. Like she already knows the answer. 'For them.'

Castiel cringes, his body tensing in on itself as it fights the inescapable pain. The angels watch him like he's a fascinating new discovery. Eventually he chokes out a grated 'yes.'

'Cas!'  
'Cas, no!'

And they still don't know what's happening or why. What anything means beyond Castiel's wild-eyed appearance only an hour ago, with blood already staining his skin and desperate words in his mouth. Words he never even got the chance to speak before the angels attacked. And now there they are, talking of a conversation that Sam and Dean were never privy to.

Naomi stands, beautiful and poised, before turning back to the Winchesters. With a lazy sweep of her fingers their injuries never existed, so not even a ghosting impression of them remain. She fixes them with infinite eyes.

'Sam and Dean Winchester, we are here to reclaim Castiel,' this is a closing speech, this is not a conversation, not even a debate. 'He is to return unto heaven and will never set foot upon this plain again.'

'No.'

'He is of no more use to you, and we have use of him. You will continue with your lives, search for the tables, destroy lesser things. Whatever whim takes your fancy. But you will do it without him.'

'_No_.'

Its all to sudden and all to unceremonious. For a moment as momentous as a falling grain of sand, the brothers lock eyes with Castiel. He is everything and nothing, a naked heartbeat in a sea of inky black. Then the angels disappear and don't even leave the lingering thump of wings as a parting comfort.

Sam and Dean are left in an empty war zone.

And the world pitches, then fades.

And everything is more muffled than before.

* * *

The first week is spent in red and fury. They scream at the heavens, send torrents of pleas to every one they know, and everyone they don't, every name that might hold a glimmer of hope. They find demons and alphas, consort psychics and ghosts, even call Crowley because they know heaven won't answer. They are words and threats and anger bubbling because _they will get him back they will get him back_. On the seventh day they find a feather pinned under their windshield. Its as long as Sam's arm, and as Dean plucks it from its hold, his fingers are met with dark blood.

The second week is spent in dust and age. They turn to books and research. They read a thousand words and then a thousand more. They learn new languages in the space of an evening in the vain hope of finding more answers hidden there. Kevin and Garth know nothing, can help with nothing, leave them with nothing. Black shapes squirm and squiggle over their vision until even the letters of their own names make little sense, but still they try because _we can get him back we can get him back_. On the seventh day they find a trench-coat folded neatly on the back seat. Its almost black with dirt and blood, the left arm melted and burned away.

The third week is gray, stretching on infinite. They argue until they have no breath left, argue the same idea over and over until they are coiled and fevered. And on the seventh day with no longer a blink of hesitation, Sam shoots Dean in the chest.

Thirty seconds pass.

Sam only has time to re-cock the gun before the world goes haywire. The lights explode and the ground heaves as lighting splits the sky. Dean gasps into life and an angel appears in front of them.

'Silence,' it commands, and their voices vanish.

It takes a careful step forward and speaks as though addressing a child.

'Heed us, Winchester's. There is no way you can enter heaven's gate while purposefully seeking death yourselves. If you come by natural cause, and still hold some intent of finding Castiel, we will send you away to a place darker than Earth. If you attempt to interfere whist still alive, we will punish those you love, the souls we harbour that are tied to you,' it's eyes pierce them with each new name. 'Robert Singer, Jo and Ellen Harvelle, Pamela Barnes… many more we will punish. Do not doubt what the host are willing to do. Do yourselves a favour, and do not look. You will not find. You will never succeed.'

It disappears.

* * *

The days melt and bleed, there is an unaccounted time where they exist only in numbness before they have to accept the inevitable; that they can't do anything. So they continue hunting. They continue their lives. They follow Naomi's orders with as much rage and malice as they can stomach, and take the only comfort they can in a cosmos of sloshing emotions by praying to Castiel.

They do it every night. Without fail. Sometimes together, sometimes alone, but always they pray. And often they wonder (or fear) that its the wrong thing to do. Whatever is happening to Cas, whatever he's suffering, maybe hearing their voices does more harm than good. The angels will know they're praying, Dean and Sam don't doubt that for a second, and maybe they'll use it against Cas, make him suffer from them, make him detest the sound of their voices and the life he can never have. And in those moments the brothers grow quiet, because if they can't even prey then theres nothing left they can do. The silence stretches on ineffable as they weigh up the possibility that the best thing to do is simply forget. For him. For them. But in the end they always break, and their steady mantra returns;

'Cas…'

'Hey, it's us…'

Cas, it's me…'

'Its a thursday down here…'

'So, it's raining today…'

They gave up offering encouragement and empty promises, they talk instead of nothing, letting words spill out in the shape of mindless pleasantries. There's no point pretending they can ever save him, now they just talk for the selfish comfort that its the least they can do. That its the _only_ thing they can do. And though they never say it, to each other or to Cas, they know the prayers will continue till their dying breaths.

They know they'll never stop.

Three months later and they'll never stop.

Seven months later and they'll never stop.

Eight months later and two hundred miles away, a meteor strikes the Earth.

* * *

___Here we go guys!  
__Quote is from Psalm 91:4_


	2. Meteor

**Meteor**

The falling of the meteor would have been considered a remarkable astrological occurrence if anyone had been about to witness it. As it was, the empty vastness where it fell had no witnesses to speak of, had nothing at all in fact. If there had been birds, its impact would have silenced their dawn chorus. But there are no birds. There is nothing but the charred earth and blackened choking crater.

And inside the crater, a creature stirs.

For the longest time, the pitted hole is its world. It knows of nothing outside of it, and cannot even comprehend that something beyond it can exist. It's legs twitch with surprise that they have freedom to move. The small, dark crater is its universe and its overwhelmed by how large and bright it is.

The ground hears the creature. A soft, shifting whisper made by loose earth under clenching fingers. A creaking smother of earth compressed under a trembling body. The ground hears hesitant movements, uncoordinated limbs dragging themselves in the dust; a dull thud of heavy feet, stumbling to support dead weight.

The wind touches the creature. Caressing itself over ragged skin thats rough and tender to the point where no touch can be comforting. It feels sweat and tremors. It feels an unsteady pulse tapping through paper flesh. The skin itself is sick, pours clogged with a substance worse than dirt. The wind looses itself in hair, course and ordinary.

The sky sees the creature. It sees something once great now fallen, a pitiful thing that cannot support the weight of its own burden. Around its hollow shell it wears clothing it used to know, black trousers and a white shirt; the rest of it is gone, lost to some inferno it refuses to acknowledge. The sky sees red rivers oozing through light cotton.

The world tastes the creature. It tastes of salt and blood and ash and rust. It tastes vile and the world wants nothing more than to spit it out.

In the nothingness the creature shudders, and begins to walk.

Behind him he leaves footprints branded into the warped sand, and there's something dully satisfying about leaving things in his wake. Little imprints that prove he exists. Even if he doesn't anymore. He's not sure, electricity and fire flare to aggressively in his mind to think about those sort of things. The world and everything in it are observing him, something that feels natural. He is supposed to be observed.

It's almost seven hours later that he finds the sharp metallic hulk of a transmissions tower. He stops underneath its shadow and for the first time lifts his face to the sky. The wires above him tingle with sharp force as electricity jolts through them. It makes him flinch but he doesn't remember why. The tower, belonging to humanity, looks down at him and understands the things nature can not.

It understands a face thats split in two; one half is human, the other half a mess. The flesh is thin and swollen, blue and purple bleeding to yellow and green. Colours that strike boldly up his cheekbone and pool around his eye-socket. It understands the irregular, wheezing pants of lungs that struggle to work. It understands the grated skin of battered hands, fingers that are thick with misuse dripping sluggish, red drops onto the hungry earth. It understands the creature below it as a broken thing.

The ground hears, the wind feels, the sky sees, the world tastes. The tower understands as it shatters the surroundings with its ugly humanity.

Castiel remembers he is Castiel.

* * *

It takes to long to find something that makes him stop walking. When he first stumbles upon a road he blinks with lack of understanding, but he begins to follow its empty tracks, even though he misses his footprints. Theres emptiness around him and for a blissful moment he's happy to think of nothing and be content with just a name. Eventually, however, his burdens begin to catch him up. Walking along the road from starting-point nothingness into destination nowhere, Castiel stumbles and falls. Something is burning, his back is ribbons of flesh.

He notices he doesn't have shoes.

Sharp and insistent, a pain reverberates through him. It builds from somewhere deep inside, causing his stomach to clench and piston acid up his throat. But its also inside his skin, and inside his skull where it crackles and fissures like a furious spark. His face throbs, his arms quake, his back and throat are raw and burned. Theres blood on his hands and it wont go away.

The only movement he's seen are two vehicles that sped past him. Whatever souls they harboured within their hard shells, he wasn't privy to. Perhaps they didn't have any, were just hollow empty beasts. What they were or not, they ripped through his life without a second thought. Castiel certainly doesn't own a second thought; when he's lucid enough to think, he knows he barely has a first.

He feels like something very important is missing.

There should be voices. Why are there no voices? They spoke garbled sounds and made his head burn, but they were the only consistency in a horrific blankness. The absence of their noise makes him sick, so much so that, mindless and bewildered, he collapses and retches up painful bile. But he can't hear that either. He can't hear anything. A noiseless world is resting thick and heavy on his shoulders.

Panic snakes its way down his throat, forcing ice through his veins. Unbearable pain assaults his senses. He can smell rancid blood and pus and ooze. Grated by the rough asphalt, his fingers try to cling onto the world he's quickly slipping from. He should keep moving, but his body and mind wont obey, so Castiel retches again and is suffocated into unconsciousness by the silence.

When he finally wakes he knows its to a silent world. When he finally stands, he does so in silence. Treading blindly on his path once more, he thinks hard about how he is named Castiel - because anything is better than the unquenchable silence.

* * *

It's dark when Castiel finds a town. It's a fact he decides to note even though it means little to him, its been dark and light several times since he found his name and lost his senses. A sign proudly states _Cowley_ and_ Wyoming_ along with other nonsensical words. Castiel is relieved he can't read them all, and trudges steadily onwards. The ground creeps downwards and the world changes from velvet blackness to harsh colour as artificial lights glare painfully in his sun-burnt eyes. Everything here is hard and fast; movement and light and energy throw him off balance, he'd got used to the blurry monotonous world of before.

He instinctively stays away from people. Perhaps they might help him, he doesn't know if he's allowed help. The first sight of them had sent him shivering into a corner. Their movement and their faces and their thoughts and their intent were almost as overwhelming as the silence. They reminded him of angels. They made him remember fear.

But eventually he finds he can ignore them if he forgets to remember they exist. A creaking ripple of pain flares along his ruined back, up his spine and sinks into his skull. The world pitches again, its almost common occurrence now. He's nearly dead on his feet, but through his silent delirium he somehow manages to find three things:

First he finds water: a feat which is neither difficult or requiring thinking, which Castiel assumes is why he manages it in the first place. There is a dented metallic object tipped over on its side, its wheels waggle pathetically in the air like an overturned pig. But its gray shiny skin has collected a puddle of water that glimmers. Upon approach Castiel can see the flaring artificial lights softening in its oily surface.

Somewhere along the way he also finds a coat. It's not long or tan or a trench coat, but its dark and will hide the blood he knows shouldn't be there. The material is course and stiff and silent, it moves unwillingly over his arms and drags defiantly over his back. Its passage creates waves of heat. It must be heat, because pain can't possibly be this unbearable. Castiel feels himself gasp and cannot stop his body from shaking.

He notices again that he doesn't have shoes.

The final thing he finds is a coin. The coin is the most important, more important than anything even if he can't remember its use. He stares at it for an age before the silence makes him throw up the water he so greedily choked down. People stare, Castiel doesn't need awareness to know that they are. He doesn't want attention, bad things will happen. So he stumbles away from the scene and, reeling with each moment, half collapses against a wall. He reminds himself again that he is Castiel and watches blankly as the cars drift past. Their headlights blur together leaving snakes of light hanging in the air. He feels their rumble and tastes their fumes but he can't hear them. And still there are no voices.

There is the ever familiar disjointed sense of being. Its the thing that makes Castiel unsure he exists, even though he does. But then sometimes he doesn't. He looks down at the blood on his hands, now fresh and wet from the water and his fall. He stares at it hard. Harder than the coin. He stares until he sees nothing but the blood, until the strange spots in his vision threaten of overwhelm him, but he can't make the blood disappear. He can't heal his wounds.

But he knows he used to be able to.

So now he knows that ability has been ripped away from him.

Just like the voices.

* * *

_I like to call this chapter an exploration into writing senses.  
__Poor Cas... don't worry, he's coming back slowly but surely._

_Thanks for the reviews guys, warms the cockles of my heart!_


	3. Dawn Chorus

**Dawn Chorus**

In a faceless motel on a forgotten road, Sam and Dean Winchester lie in the darkness.

Another month. Another week. Another case. Another motel. Another sleep. In the real world the brothers are as they always have been. There is tension and mistrust and a thousand things they never speak about, and a hundred more they wished they would. The life that threw itself at them when Dean returned for purgatory is reminiscent of their old one, with a task and a goal and a journey to take. Their life is, as it always has been, their life. But the future is a bleak gray that holds nothing for them, and their world is weighted with the unspoken.

Only in the dark do things change.

'Hey, Cas. Sorry for the late one, just got back from a hunt…'

When there is nothing to see but a black, velvet void, and nothing to do but sink into dreams best forgotten, here is when the brothers are truly free. The time of dwindling nightfall, when humans peacefully sleep and monsters tirelessly prowl. This is the time when the prayers are spoken.

'… this fucking vamp, man. He was thick as pig-shit and I'm not even exaggerating. Took about thirty seconds to lure him in the alley. Syringe to the neck. Bang. He's down. You'd think they'd learn by now, I know for a fact they've got networks, there must be better…'

And somehow through the softly spoken words, the Winchesters' life by day gently seeps away, and the brothers become brothers again. It never matters what they say, who they talk about, or even why they say it; they speak simply for the beautiful clarity it gives them.

There is a precious sanctity to be found when theres nothing more than voices in the dark.

'… Don't think Benny would be right impressed. Remember when punched that vamp so hard in its face it choked to death on its own teeth?' a slight pause, but its okay to bring up Benny in the dark. Everything is safe in the dark. 'Getting sick of vamps anyway, almost looking forward to the next case. We got a demon sighting in Wyoming. We're a day out of the town, gunna head there in the morning.'

Another pause, but this one is heavy. Sam hungrily takes up the mantra.

'Haven't dealt with demons in a while. We figure they're all doing tablet stuff, to busy to cause trouble, y'know? I'm keeping my eye on the networks, remember I said Kevin's good with computers? We've worked some things out, but even with that there's pretty much nothing…'

The darkness is their release.

'… and the way it was sniffing around, it made me think of this time with Riot. It's, well, not that nice I guess, but he wouldn't stop rolling in it and I figured if a dogs gunna do it then why not a werewolf? Took even less time that I thought to find the right smell to cripple it…'

In the darkness, and to Castiel, they can say things they never could to each other.

'… still needed about a ton of the stuff though, tipped it into a dried out pond. Never heard of a vamp nest working with a werewolf before. But, yeah, demons will definitely be a nice change...'

Of Dean, Sam learns sometimes he still struggles to understand his forgiveness of Cas. He talks more of angels and hell and things he never mentioned before but that Cas would know about - Cas understands them. Sam learns more of purgatory and its nature, the things Dean did there and what he felt like he became. His brother talks about their dad a lot, but never mentions him directly, he's just a presence under the surface of Deans skin - something else hes decided he shares with Cas. Sam learns that Dean talks more of moments than events, and more of 'how' he does things, not 'why'.

Of Sam, Dean learns more of his madness, what Sam went through and his own minds betrayal. He realises there are some things he can't possibly understand, but that, as the days turn to months, Sam finds he talk to Cas about it - Cas went through it too. Dean learns how important Sams other life was, because he mentions it with such fondness, and also that Sam never chose it over him, and never would, because its not about one or the other. He learns that on cases Sam tries to figure out 'who' and not 'what' they're dealing with.

In the safety of the dark the brothers learn about each other. They talk until the sky begins to bleed a filthy pink, and their voices reluctantly fall silent as the dawn chorus begins.

'Talk tomorrow.'  
'Tomorrow, Cas.'

* * *

Castiel wakes up.

He doesn't remember going to sleep. The creaking lights of a bleary dawn greet him, and he feels he missed something huge and important during the weight of his unconsciousness. The silence still screams at him, and the blood on his hands cracks and sparks with every movement. But Castiel reminds himself that he's Castiel, its enough for him survive through another round of consciousness. In his pocket he feels the weight of the coin, an anchor to secure him to the future.

He tries saying something, hesitant and unsure. He tries to say his name because he can't think of anything else. All to familiar syllables form in his mouth and he speaks 'Castiel'. He can feel the tightness in his lungs and the pressure in his throat as the muscles work themselves, but he doesn't hear anything.

He says it again. 'Castiel', 'Castiel'.

Nothing.

Sparking hurt ripples up his arms as his tattered hands clench involuntarily, and against the pitying laughter of the silence Castiel drags himself upright. Limbs are stiff and foreign from the cold of the night, but he's not capable of noticing. Hunger and thirst scream a symphony in his stomach, but he's not capable of noticing. Nor noticing the molten electric up his back, nor the burning ice in his chest.

But he remembers he is Castiel, and he remembers the coin. Its useful for… something that he will surely discover later if he just keeps on searching. He sways. Then, with the coin fixed firmly in his mind, he unsteadily begins to walk. The city of night is a different universe under dawns sight. A gentle lull of a world waking up wraps itself around Castiel as he walks. It's of little comfort.

Occasionally faces of people loom into his vision, they look at him through a window of curiosity that no other emotion penetrates. He is of interest, not concern. A misplaced anomaly. And so the people observe him until he is gone from their sight. The feeling of being watched by unfriendly faces is familiar. Castiel very carefully doesn't think about angels.

He stops walking when he realises theres an important shape in front of him. Frowning, he struggles against his mind, which is insisting the stout shape is a metal creature that swallows you whole. It takes him time to understand, but eventually he recognises it as a phone booth with a payphone nestled inside. Helpfully his mind has already reiterated that this is a very important thing. The stubborn door yields to his struggles, and he slides in.

There is no air here.

Cold glass walls press sharply in on him. There is no air and no sound. There's no room and no air. His body begins to suffocate. There is no room. Chills shudder up him. There is no sound and no air. Brittle hands claw at his throat. There is no sound. There is no room. The air is thick water. The air is thick blood. He breathes it deeply, it clots in his lungs. There is no sound. There is pain, pain, pain.

Somehow he finds himself outside the booth once again, sitting on a bench and clutching the coin in his bloody hand. He doesn't remember how he got there, his memory is whirring static, but he's aware of his chest burning and heaving. Oxygen floods gratefully into his body as he tries to calm himself.

The world is still silent.

Castiel tries to think, but he's forgotten how he did it before. His trembling heart is settling to an unsteady beat, and burning hot in his hand is the important coin. Remember how it is important? He stares at the coin again, small and heavy in his palm. Breath in, breath out. Breath in. He watches as it shifts to the left, inching across his cracked skin, obeying the forces of his mind.

Castiel stares at the coin.

Without touch, he's making it move.

_Oh..._

The blood remains, even after he glares at it, but he can make the coin move. The coin can move, but the blood cannot. And Castiel almost asks the question he was to afraid to before… except he doesn't, because he's just remembered why the coin is important.

Everything becomes gentle and slow, he becomes like smoke and sunlight. In a strange daze and still staring at the coin, he unfolds himself from the bench, stands and sways like a peaceful tide, and allows himself to drift peacefully back towards the booth.

The world is still silent.

It all seems very simple and uncomplicated now. Not even the suffocating closeness can shatter him. He lifts the silent receiver and slips the silent coin into the silent machine. Buttons sink sharply under his weary fingers, all in silence. Castiel calls the only number his addled mind remembers.

A voice cracks through his world like a gunshot.

_'This is Dean. Leave your name, number and nightmare at the tone.'_

Castiel forgets to speak.

* * *

_Hit a real snarl part way through this so sorry if it feels like filler (and weaker writing)! I dunno, I'm not sure... __Whaddya think?_

_As always, thank you so much to everyone who reviews. It means a LOT!_


	4. The Question

__**The Question**

_'This is Dean. Leave your name, number and nightmare at the tone.'_

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

'De-?'

There is a click and a clunk and droning discordant note that blares into his ears. Castiel blinks in the morning light and watches his own shaking hand as it carefully returns the receiver to its holster. The sound of the plastic clacking on plastic is sharp.

What doesn't return to him, however, is the coin. Castiel breathes and listens to the sound of air rushing through his airways and into his lungs. He distantly remembers a soothing female requesting more money, but its faded and washed-out against the flooding colour of Dean's voice.

His shaking hand is reaching for the door now, ruptured flesh pushing slowly against cold metal. The door creaks as it swings, an ancient mouth croaking out forgotten voices. He hears them all. Outside is a city waking up. The noise is deafening as Castiel fumbles free from the booth, and, finding its rhythm, Castiel begins to wake up too, awareness growing with the days fresh light.

He finds more water, washes his hands and drinks. Theres only a little blood now, still trapped under his fingernails, and if he's not careful the tender cuts and grazes will start to bleed again. One of them already is, blood creaking along the lines of his hands. Castiel blinks at it and feels cold. Which, when he finally gets his brain to catch up, he realises is a good thing. Feeling cold is better than the strange numbness that engulfed him before.

He listens to the street-thrum of cars and people, is aware of his injuries, stubborn and unsealing; he feels cold and hungry and so bone-achingly tired it nearly makes him collapse again. He does all these things. But then he can also move a coin without touch.

What does that make him now?

A strange mixture of clarity and caution hang heavy above him. He is coming back, but back to a world where answers are light and shadow, as untouchable as a whisper. He doesn't know what to do, a mockingly familiar feeling. And so, unsure and unwilling, he settles for doing nothing.

The day creeps on.

It's bad for him, he knows, to just sit and think. But thinking helps, and he can feel the pieces of himself knitting together again. Because he is here and it is real and this is real and he is real. The missing voices were Dean and Sam. The same ones that vanished. Sam and Dean. He couldn't hear them, couldn't hear their prayers, because emptiness has consumed him until he was nothing but ash and dust-s_top_. Stop. It will be okay, a good lie to believe. It will all be okay because the voice on the phone had been Dean. Dean and Sam. Sam and Dean.

The sky begins to bleed a sickly pink and orange as Castiel pinches the bridge of his nose. Everything burns. Everything aches. He may be able to move and coin a few inches, but he is cold to the point of sickness. He could move a coin a few inches, but he cannot heal. In fact he's almost catatonic with blood-loss.

What does that make him now?

As the dark settles into the city like snow-fall, Castiel finally stands up. He needs to find another coin, needs to find their voices again, their absence pains him more than anything else. So be begins to walk, each stab of pain resolutely making him ignore the wounds on his back, and the tickle of blood creeping sluggishly over his skin.

* * *

Several hours later he wishes he didn't remember the concept of time, almost wishes for the numb oblivion again because now he knows pain and cold and they smother their heavy burden over him. The city has slunk back into its sharp neon glare, pockets of shadow nestling like crevasses amongst the light. Castiel sticks to the empty backstreets, less people, less confusion, less noise, although he still glad of the noise.

Walls become his friends, offering a solidity to his twisting, shifting world. He grips them, runs tattered fingers along their rough stone, and when he collapses again and again he soaks against their coldness. And then they're always there to help him stand once more, so he walks alongside them, a ghost of his own.

_stopstopstopstop_

He pauses at the entrance to a side-alley, unsteady and trembling. There is something sloshing in the base of his skull, a once pure impulse turned murky and polluted - something of his other self, or maybe his current self, or broken self, Castiel isn't sure. His view of the sidewalk lurches, so he tightens his grip and trains his eyes into the darkness of the alley, trying to see what the broken impulse is picking up.

In the middle of the high walls stands a human. It raises its head, picking up Castiel's heavy breathing, and turns to look at him, still and tense and _angry_.

'Keep walking,' it says.

Castiel blinks and his body coils. The impulse is a pitching torrent that nearly drowns him from the inside out. _demondemondemonitsademon_. It towers before him and he can see it for all its tainted rot. The human it's stolen is barely noticeable under the black-stained coil of malice and evil. It makes his heart bleed into his ribs.

'Buddy, piss off,' the demon snarls though human lips.

Around the far corner of the alley suddenly come three others. Two are like the first, twisting and pulsating as they fester inside their hosts. The third is a woman, a flurry of brown hair and terrified eyes, who is flung carelessly against a wall and collapses with a panicked scream. She is fear and noise as the demons approach.

For less than a pulse, Castiel is something more than himself once again, weight and gravity and force and light. He steps forward, framed boldly in the light of the entrance. A challenge that will not be ignored. The lights around him flicker and twitch.

'_Don't_.'

All three twist towards him, malice glinting in their lightless eyes like black diamonds. He feels himself instantly fade. The woman still screams, little panicked gasps that Castiel is glad he can hear - they are his only fuel now. The raw power is already gone, the impulse corroded into nothingness, the lights are steady and sedate. Castiel shivers in his emptiness.

The demons move.

One runs, disappearing into the maze of the city, lost from the world in a thrumming of hurried footsteps. The second slings the woman upright, twisting her limpness like a rag-doll until it has her standing. The woman whimpers as it clutches her tightly, a knife pressed close into her neck. The third is fixed on Castiel.

It glowers with a furious concoction of impulses and thoughts as it tries to understand just what the hell he is. For less than a heartbeat, Castiel flashes sympathy. If he knew what he was he'd tell it. But then the creature lunges at him, its stolen face twisting with anger and petty pride. It throws its hand, long and low, and Castiel feels the force of the demon pulsing through his blood.

It's base and corrupt, a wrenching force that no human should posses. Castiel staggers and nearly collapses; his heart rises in his chest, clogs his throat, chokes his lungs. The demon snarls a smile, hand still outstretched, but its face begins to fall as Castiel fights back. He grits his teeth, tenses and braces, and manages, impossibly, not to move.

Any relief he felt is short lived, as the next second the demon cannons into him. A double handed fist hammers into his face. Pain as a flower blossoms deep and rich as the already bruised flesh is impacted hard. Another something hammers into his ribs, once, twice, three times.

Castiel drops.

The demon follows him down, fists still flying.

Somewhere in the distance the woman still screams.

Blinded by flecks of blood and roiling pain as sharp as anger, Castiels ruined hands manage to scrabble closed around the demons throat. He clenches with all the strength he has, the demon gurgles and claws flesh from his arms. Castiel hears a hiss of pain and realises it comes from his own throat. Gathering his strength, he wrenches his body to the side; the demon is twisted off him, gaging and spitting as they both scramble to their feet.

The demon spins, Castiel ducks. The demon strikes, Castiel deflects. Every movement is stone grinding on stone, rumbles running as deep as the centre of the earth. And with each one comes a torrent of fire and ice. The demons sulphuric core burns his nose, coats his eyes with thick, unyielding grease.

He's dimly aware of a cold wall slamming into his back, his head snaps backwards with the force and his skull meets sharp brickwork with a crack. Acid hands clamp down over his throat. He can't even struggle anymore. A hulking, twisted face is breathing heavily inches from his. Teeth and muscle and bone dripping like tar swarm through his vision, engulf him, chew him, swallow him whole and spit him out again.

Castiel reaches inside for release, digging to a place he knows is withered and dead, but he goes anyway with faint lingering hope. He chokes. Acid bites his lungs. Blood pounds his ears. The demons face begins to sink in faint light. His vision begins to fade, pooling into white blood that hums and whines.

The world takes a breath.

.

Everything becomes nothing.

.

And then the world explodes.

All along the street, blaring lights splinter into a thousand pieces. Shattered glass shimmers through the air like rain-fall; sparks flare and plummet like falling stars and the road is granted a new skin of silver fire. Castiel heaves thick air through his ruined throat, gutters and coughs wretchedly. The wall is solid behind him where he slumps, pressing him firmly back into reality.

When his eyes finally drift back into tainted focus he tries to understand what happened. His arms don't work anymore, hang limply by his side. Opposite him in the alley-way is a gaping hole in the heavy wall. Powdered dust drifts like fog in the air, and even as Castiel looks a few more bricks clatter to the floor. Somewhere deep inside the hole, Castiel knows is the demon. Dead.

The stale night echoes with harmonies of his struggling breath and a woman quietly sobbing.

Castiel slowly lifts his head to the heavens and gasps the question he knows he'll get no answer to.

'What did you do to me?'

* * *

_Originally this chapter had more, but I cut it up as otherwise it'd be a chapter and a half.  
Enjoy some strange mixture of hurt!bamf!Cas, cos I like it when he throws things through walls._

_Thank you **so so** much for your reviews and kind words!  
_


	5. Blackout

**Blackout**

Darkness moves its silky tongue through the blackout, tasting and testing each corner and crevasse. It reaches out and licks down alley walls, lets out slow, steady breaths over the tarred asphalt. This is its world, sweet and beautiful. Now that the sour tasting lights of the city had been stripped away with a unnatural burst of acid light, the darkness stretches, whets its pallet and devours the street with endless hunger.

Castiel's chest stutters, desperate breaths rise and fall in pulses that are barely stronger than a heartbeat. Limbs trap him where he slumps, heavy as stone with their bleak refusal to move. The air stings his throat, stings his lungs, stings his nose. Dizzying, sickening nausea is hurled in heavy forceful waves. A pulse beats against his brain.

He stares at the dim and blurry outline of his feet and remembers he doesn't have shoes.

The alley is blackness, and croons itself soft and famished against his fractured skin. Small sobs punctuate the dark from a woman who has already drowned in its depth.

Weary, heavy, hurt, Castiel rolls his head sideways along the jutting bricks behind him. He pushes his gaze through the thick night to where the little sobs resound. Crumbling bone and blood writhe under his flesh; his skull aches a fierce fire. But he finds the woman softly glowing, some remnant in his eyes pick up the imprint of her soul. Though even as he looks half his vision flares; one eye jolts, begins to bleed sickly tears. He shuts it quickly, tries to ignore the bruised flesh pinching together; waits until the world is eaten up again and his breathing steadies beyond its shallow gasps.

He needs to help the woman. Its a thought as strong as Sam and Dean. A thought that gives him dull hopeless power. The bottomless stomach of the darkness cannot swallow him up, no matter how hard it gnaws and chews. He needs to help her.

The woman is sobbing and trembling, brushing hair from her eyes and making panicked gasps. Castiel stares across and decides she looks like he feels. He tries to stand. Something inside him reels, static swarms, he lurches and with a gasp blacks out. The next instant he is back, dragged from unconsciousness by fear alone.

He needs to help the woman. Dull senses pitch and fall as pulls himself up and weaves his unsteady limp towards her. He doesn't extend a hand, they're raw and throbbing, but clutches the wall carefully lest he drop again.

He means to say _hello_ but only manages, '-lo.'

'Oh!' She jumps the same instant he winces. Castiel grits his teeth and a fights against the roaring fire along his throat.

'Are you okay?' he gasps out.

She looks up, and looks down, and quirks a terrified smile and frowns, tries to sort her hair again, brushes tears from her face. She is flurried and fast, like a hummingbird afraid to fly. Castiel does nothing, because he can't think of anything to do, but his stillness seems to calm her.

'Yeah- yeah I- I didn't see them. Jesus. Should've been more careful, I- thank you. The other one ran off. They- she had a _knife_. Shit. Jesus I- I think- I need to call somebody. My husband, I- he'll come get me.'

Its more words than Castiel is used to dealing with, and her expressions are so fast he feels ill from watching them. Half of everything still lays forgotten, he'd grown used to blindly knowing what to do, orders punching an irremovable brand in his brain. But she wasn't ordering anything, and he still didn't know what to do, so he asks hesitantly again:

'You're okay?'

She looks at him harder now, eyes clearer, trying to read him. He knows he can't be read, especially not in the darkness. For the first time he wonders where all the blackness came from. Something creaks in the back of his mind; _you blew out the lights dipshit_ it says in Deans voice, because he remembers Deans tembre far better than his own broken melody. The woman is talking again, he tries to focus.

' - call my husband, I-that would be best. You-will you… stay with me until he comes?'

And Castiel says, 'yes.'

She nods, flurries some more, grips at a small bag, swallows, and finally uses the wall to pull herself unsteadily to her feet. Castiel can sympathise, but he doesn't reach out to help. His hands are a mess once more, sunburned skin ripped from his knuckles and old gashes seeping tainted blood that will never wash away.

'God, ' she's trying to sound strong. 'L-lets get to where there's some light.'

They set off down the alley, back to a more busy night-time world. She keeps glancing back at him; he dully realises her mistrust, wonders if he can explain his duty to protect, realises he's not sure thats his duty anymore. They step into a street and into the sanctity of light. The buzzing lamps swarm away the hungry shadows from their prey, and the woman lifts her face to the glow like it will raise her holy. Castiel wavers, unconsciousness digs bony fingers into his back.

'Jesus!'

The womans voice is suddenly barbed, her face sallow in horror, eyes pinching and mouth open. Castiel flinches; she stares him down like he is a tainted thing and the throbbing impulse in his brain screams bloody.

'Your face!'

He blinks, half cowered, all incomprehension. And now the woman is surveying him, eyes ticking over with harsh severity.

'I didn't- that can't have been from just now,' her eyes flick, 'your hands too,' they flick again, 'what the-' now she is all doubt. 'How hard did he hit you?' she finally breathes.

Castiel opens his mouth. 'I-,' thick pain cuts him off. More noise begs to be made, an answer to her question, _you will answer all questions_.

But the womans face crumples and she shakes her head. Castiel understands words of guilt written across it; for a moment he wonders why until he realises she's looking soft sympathy at his ruined throat. A ghost of the demons rabid hands clenching and grasping echoes in his head.

'He messed you up good,' she says in a strange attempt at joviality. 'You should go to a hospital,' she pauses, looks over his filthy coat, bare feet, 'guess they wont help the homeless much.'

Castiel accepts the label, swallows the impulse to speak and watches with faint numbness as the woman fumbles in her bag. She flashes him a tight smile and clamps a cell to her ear with shaking hands. Instinctively she turns her back on him, speaks trembling calm to the voice on the other end.

When did his life lose all surety? Here is a human who is terrified beyond everything and still knows what she needs to do. And what is he? A mess of broken impulses and fractured selfs. Nothing but mutilations, bone and dust. No. Stop it. No, he knows what he's doing. Help the woman. Find Dean and Sam. His name is Castiel and he is…

He is...

...he is half collapsed against another friendly wall.

He swallows then wishes he hadn't. With the womans words still reverberating around his skull, he carefully raises a hand and brushes tender fingers to his face. There's blood round his mouth, from his nose he thinks. His cheek is a throbbing pulse, pain building on pain, bruised flesh festering over already bruised flesh. He very carefully doesn't touch near his eye.

On this street, the lights are still blazing. The woman and he stand in a hazy yellow pool of their own, and before Castiel even realises what he's doing, he slowly extends a hand and concentrates on the buzzing lamp. His brain begins to beat electric as he pushes outside of himself again. The bulb does nothing.

And nothing.  
More nothing.  
Nothing again.  
And then a flicker.

'He's on his way.'

Pulling himself sharply back, Castiel redirects his focus and nods. Its a welcome distraction, his head is throbbing rhythmically. A pulse traverses his body, beating a tattoo against his creaking ribs. The woman looks at him askance, then seems to reach a decision that involves sitting on the sidewalk. After a moment of unsure hovering, Castiel sits as well, taking careful consideration to not be to close. He thinks she seems thankful for that.

'Do… do you need money or…?' she keeps glancing at his feet. 'I mean, you've got somewhere you can go, right?' Her voice is laden with something Castiel realises is reluctant responsibility. She feels she owes him.

'Yes,' he lies carefully. 'Thank you,' he adds.

She gives a distracted shrug, 'sure,' though Castiel can tell there is relief buried under her words.

When the car finally arrives and the concerned man jumps out, Castiel finds he's to exhausted to move. Woman embraces man and she instantly crumbles from the inside out. She is ushered inside the car, but not before she cranes around and manages a genuine 'thank you'. The door is shut, she is safe. The man coldly eyes Castiel over and mumbles an echoed thanks, fulfilling his social obligations. Then they are gone.

His back begins to throb again.

* * *

A rumble and a stutter and an engine softly sighing to sleep. Dean leans back and rubs a knuckle over his eyes as his brothers voice fills the car. Sam speaks short and clipped - only importance, they're on the job after all. They are professional.

'So recent activity is mysterious cattle deaths, one or two missing persons, and apparently a meteor struck nearby a couple of days ago.'

'What exactly are we dealing with?'

'Garth didn't say,' Sam waits for Dean to look at him, expectant for his annoyance. 'So I'm guessing its not tablet related,' he says. 'Just demons.'

'Just demons,' Dean barks out a laugh. 'Just demons. Demons doing demon things.'

They sit for a while and contemplate themselves. It says far to much about their lives that _just demons doing demon things_ is boring and mundane. There is no bigger picture to present itself. Nothing big and grand and important to do. The tablet is like waiting for a storm, nothing to be done but stay ready for when it hits. Their life is once again about the hunt and nothing but. Except, of course, when its time to speak prayers to the dark.

Sam disappears from the car and strides into the halogen studded night. Dean watches him stop and talk to nearby people, flashing a smile and then a badge, bundling them up with secure confidence. He doesn't get out of the car, just sits in silence. Sits and feels empty and watches until Sam returns.

'Apparently there's just been a violent blackout a few streets away. Lights exploding, sparks and glass, sounds pretty demonic.'

'I guess its something,' Dean sighs. Sam pulls back from the door as he moves to climb out. 'Fucking demons.'

As he straightens and angrily ignores his protesting knees, Sam holds his hand out in offering. When he looks down he sees a phone gripped tightly. Its new and black and would have been expensive if it had been paid for.

'To replace your other one,' Sam says and his all to open face flashes something between guilt and amusement. Dean's old phone is at the bottom of a pond. A pond filled with dog shit. Dog shit and a dead werewolf.

'Gee thanks Sammy,' he quips. The phone blinks to life. 'Same number?'

'It'll take a few days to transfer across.'

Dean opens his mouth to release another semi-sarcastic line, but relents to just a eye roll and a head-shake as he pockets the phone. Sam is still smiling and Dean feels himself warming up. Their world is in suspension, clinging hard and desperate until the moment it drops. And drop it will. But for now… for now they have demons. For now they have a hunt, and its almost just enough to let them forget about the future.

Sam and Dean walk together, foot-falls marching their eternal rhythm, and disappear into the night.

* * *

_Sorry for the delay with this one - I've been house moving.  
__Thanks so much for reviews and feedback, there's exciting things looming!_


	6. Three Parts

**Three Parts**

There is a beginning.

It's heavy and weighted; a rumble and drone, gears clunking, pieces moving. Its the same beginning they've started a hundred times before. A story spans out before them, their story. The hunt. Always the same, and it will tick over as it always does to a middle and an end. The beginning should be sharp and fresh, should taste of promise and feel like rainfall. The beginning should not seem like an end.

Sam and Dean stare down at the corpse. It lies gentle and serene in the hazy dust, like the world seeks to cloak it from its brutal demise. From their flashlights, small footprints of light meander gently over it, highlighting bloody skin and waxen features. Sam sighs. The demon is dead, its spine and neck broken from the shattered wall it was obviously thrown through. But it was probably dead before that. Its eyes are burned out of its skull.

'Looks like your buddies have been here,' Dean says quietly to the sky. 'Got an exorcised demon at my feet, Cas. Whats going on?'

Sam doesn't bother looking up, he never does.

'Someone get bored and fancy a relaxing smite? Huh?' Dean drops his gaze, toes a nearby brick, sharp and sullen. Its almost spoken aloud, unholy words, but in the end neither brother need say it. Theres been no angels for nine months.

Sam says it anyway. 'Why suddenly angels?'

Dean responds with, 'why now?'

And neither of them have an answer.

When the other two demons appear, there is barely space for monotonous surprise. The beginning has drifted away without them even noticing. This is the middle. It holds no suspense. Two demons doing demon things, malicious and intent. This is the middle that feels a hundred words, when really it could be told in ten.

They insult and bargain, curse and barter. _Winchesters. We don't want trouble. We don't know anything. We'll rip you apart. Just trying to survive. We didn't know. I'll peel your skin. We promise we didn't know. Don't want to fight. Don't want to kill you. We'll kill you!_

Even while caught in the throws, Dean doesn't remember the fight. Its all clockwork and programmed. Move, step, punch, slice. If there is pain its unfelt, a footprint rather than a foot. The middle has no suspense, no fear, no heroes. You can't have a good middle when the beginning is already the end.

Dean finds Sam coughing on the floor. Next to him is a demon, blood pooling gently from its skull. Her skull. Hers... Because in death she's human again, and Dean hates the fact that he has to remind himself.

'Sam?' he shakes his brothers arm, starts hauling him up. 'Yep,' he soothes over his brothers moans. 'You got your ass kicked.'

'Crap,' Sam says and steadies himself on his own legs.

'You good?'

'Yeah. It dead?'

'You tell me, half its head's missing… Garth said there were three?'

Sam nods, sweeps the empty building with his eyes; and then, gentle as soft gripping bone, the end settles firmly upon them alongside the dust in the air. The end is bygone. The end is gray. The end is nothing but cinders and smoke, dry and creaking whispers of a story not worth telling. The demons are accounted for: one dead on arrival, the other two now taken care of. The hunt is over. The job is done. The end.

An aimless story split into three parts, all as hollow as each other.

The brothers clamber into the impala and allow empty seconds to tick past. When did their world become this? Become as faded as a shadow in the sun? _Saving people, hunting things_ now tastes like dirt in their mouths. They've lost something, a great and powerful something they can't even name. Sometimes Sam thinks the angels took more than Castiel that day. He wonders if Dean thinks that too.

Under his breath, Dean mutters 'fucking demons,' although it is barely heard over the steady string of Sam's words. He slouches in his seat, fingers running absently over a feather they keep on the dashboard. A feather stained dark and as long as his arm.

'… demons dealt with. Didn't even need to use one of Kevin's bombs. We're gunna head back to base and look up angel activity. It's either that or witches but there's no other signs to suggest…'

The impala stretches and yawns before slinking off into the night. Thirty seconds later a figure lurches into the street; falters to a stop where the car had just been. It's limp and unguarded, its sorrow and hopelessness, its Castiel left behind.

* * *

Sam and Dean live in bleached dullness, heavy, thick and faint.

Castiel lives in pulses. He is choking tar and breathless light, colours that flare and spike, knots upon twisting knots that are all flurried and brave. He pushes forward. Pushes because something sharp and terrible inside him screams that he doesn't deserve the sanctity of death. He tries to be everything because its to easy to be nothing.

But for now, as he stands in the withered night, in the same spot where the impala sat only minutes before, he is only numbness that stretches on infinite. Empty. He shivers and stares at the road in front of him, with its cars and people and movement and _noise,_ and none of it what he's looking for.

Muscles bunch and clench inside of him, static flares again. Dry and barren rivers are suddenly flooded with aching waters. A great injustice humans have to endure; that even when their minds go numb, their body will still suffer its pains. Castiel sways, but will not look away.

_… wait..._

This beginning had been a snap, sharp and crisp. A taste in the air akin to lightning building. A moment where movement, life and even breath had paused in their monotony and ceased to exist. A snap that carried echoes. Echoes that carried promise.

He'd seen it on the other side of the alley. Bathed in yellow light, shining silky in crystal black skin. It was waking and yawning, rumbling new life into the night. And, as in a dream, the impala had slunk forward over the roadside, purring happily. The impala. With Sam and Dean Winchester just visible inside. Sam and Dean. Dean and Sam.

The middle hits hard and fast.

There is movement. Castiel is running, staggering, falling, panting, forcing his body to obey his will. And inside his head, for the first time since the angel's took him, he allows himself to prey. _don'tleavedon'tleavedon'tleave._ And he's angry. Shaking rage. Because he never allowed himself to prey before. Because prayer means faith and faith means hope. And Castiel never had any hope. And he's angry, _so angry_. Because listen to him! He's praying and he's hoping, _don'tleavedon'tleave,_ and he's _furious. _He's furious because he already knows as he flings himself forward, already knows as he staggers down the alleyway, already knows as he stumbles into the street…

…that Sam and Dean are gone.

The end is inky black waters that swallow him whole; plunging him deep into unfathomable depths. This story had lasted no more than a few heartbeats. This story was over even before it had started to begin.

Castiel finally lowers his eyes.

Feels the numbness spread through him like poison.

But sometimes, just sometimes, a heartbeat is enough. A reminder small and terrified but a reminder none the less. Because there on the ground is something almost unfathomable. Glinting sharply in the light, directly in between his bare feet, is a coin.

Take this as a new beginning. To a story much longer than a heart can beat.

* * *

'_This is Dean. Leave your name, number and nightmare at the tone.'_

The slam of the phone back onto its receiver reverberates around the enclosed space. Castiel pants, tries to hold himself together. Everything behind him comes rushing back, pain and fatigue cling harder than breath. Everything before him crumbles away into desperation. He should have never allowed himself to hope.

The coin still sits heavy in his hand, saved from its futile purpose of calling an empty number. It's sharp metallic surface burns like salt upon his wounds, pushing its way past the blood and grime. His throat is molten. From somewhere deep inside a shudder licks icy tendrils up his spine. Castiel, barely holding on, decides this may be worse than the room.

He stares unseeing at the phone for a while and then squeezes his eyes together.

This needs to work, it has to work, he has to remember, its the most important thing. For a moment he doesn't even care where his thoughts go, doesn't care as they tear through the suppression, through the memories, through the things he swore he would never think about again. He needs to find the thing he forgot. A million suns flare and burn behind his eyes and Castiel can only clench his teeth as he pushes on. He's looking for another number. One he thinks he should know.

There.

Everything jolts, he reels and then retches. Somehow he has just enough sense to fall back out of the booth. Just enough sense to lower himself to the ground and force the nightmares back. One breath. One breath should be easy. One breath. Nothing should hurt this much.

Time is jostling away from him and he's cold and sick and hungry and tied. Castiel presses the heel of his hand into his forehead and screws his eyes shut until static colours suffocate his vision. But he has the number. And his heart is still beating.

Shaking fingers punch into the keys. Shaking hands clasp the hard, cold phone to his ear. He tries to ignore the pain, failing with every second that struggles by. Then, tiny and reedy through the cracked line, Sam's voice sinks gently into Castiel's broken world.

'Hello?'

And this time Castiel is ready.

'Sam,' he croaks.

'Yeah?'

Castiel means to say… something… he's supposed to say something. His mouth forms the answer 'it's me', but the words abandon him. He leans his forehead against the window of the booth. The icy glass sends a frozen needle through his brain, but Castiel barely notices. He's boneless. He's empty.

'Uh…hello?' Sam's voice queries.

He realises he should say more. His voice isn't his voice, its cracked and broken like the phone he's clinging numbly to.

'Don't leave,' he manages.

'… wh-?'

'I'm in the city. I saw you. Don't leave.'

He hears Sam breath hitch.

'I'm here,' he tries to be coherent, but his eyes sink closed and his other senses are dead. Somewhere in the background Dean's voice rings out, rising impatiently over the sound of the engine.

'I'm here,' he repeats.

'_Cas_?'

Theres the sound of tires screeching.

* * *

Twenty minutes outside of Cowley, the impala sits rumbling. There are burnt tire marks on the deserted highway where it skidded to a halt, long lines scar the asphalt. The world outside is frigid turmoil. The world inside is very much the same. Dean Winchester stares wild-eyed at his brother.

The disembodied voice struggles weakly through the phone.

'_Yes._'

Sam raises a trembling hand to point.

'Turn around,' he chokes.

The impala is movement, it's sound, it's speed. It roars its anger at the barren world and claws at the road in hellbent fury. It's everything. It's Dean. It's Sam. And it screams through the dust barely ahead of their own emotions. Dean grits his teeth, grips the wheel, growls in frustration that they can't go faster. Sam is words, complete babble and nonsense. He spills over himself, down into the phone, promises of _we're coming, we're coming_ ring over and over…

Even though its long been silent on the other end.

* * *

_This chapter was meant to be VERY different, I struggled a bit with it (hence the delay, sorry!) but I think I'm happy with how it turned out. The phone call was one of the first scenes I wrote and for a while I thought I'd have to cut it. Glad I didn't. And hope it doesn't disappoint!_

_As always, THANK YOU for your fantastic encouragement. It means so much to me, it really does.  
I'm gunna attempt to get another chapter up soon, to make up for my slowness._


	7. Fragments

**Fragments**

_Cas? Cas! We're coming. Hold on. You there? Hey, we're coming. Be there in twenty- no, ten, okay? Where are you? You said you saw us?… We're- just sit tight. We're gunna-_

Three hearts are beating, fast and heavy. Three hearts are beating with deep ticking thuds. Sam and Dean verge on furious panic, their grey world bursts and cracks into golden flames. Castiel lives in blackness still pulsing, a heartbeat born of fear and misery. Three hearts are beating. They beat in perfect sync.

'What he say?'  
'Its gone dead.'  
'_Damn it, _Cas_._'

When time become lost into turmoil, the world becomes thick with pandemonium. People panic, don't think clearly. Most often they are swarmed with a few snapshot glimpses. Shards and splinters, flashes, brief snatches. Confused highlights that last no more than a second.

Fragmented heartbeats that run as follows.

Castiel blinks in twitches, listless on the ground. Tentative new rainfall pricks his broken skin, dragging down cold air from dark skies above. Hanging limply by his face is a blaring drone wrapped in plastic, a forgotten receiver that was once so important. Sam's voice is long gone. Its replaced only by mocking mechanic tones.

The impala races restless. It plummets back into familiar territory and painfully slows to prowl the streets. In the soft beginnings of rain it rakes its eyes unblinking, over people, over streets, over the whole world if it has to. Deep in its heart sit two souls of tremor. Their eyes are as wide as it, and flicker fast and relentless.

Castiels world is plummeting fast. The rain gently lulls him with false hushes of peace, but he can't listen to the whispers, wont listen to the lies. Dean and Sam are coming. Dean and Sam, Sam and Dean. Torrents of rain hide his whimpered voice as he forces himself to stand. Sickness crawls in his stomach, pain forces him blind. He punctuates the rain with discordant footfalls.

Dean stops the car, forces his way out, screams a name. He is answered with only the pitter-patter of water, the rain hangs in thick curtains that shrink the world into a cage. Muffled echoes sound of Sam calling the same. The payphone stands in solitude, _noCaswhereisCas?_ They shout once more, run and scatter through oily pools.

The minutes tick past. The rain still falls.

The Impala sits quiet and subdued, its inky skin glistening in the weathered night. It sits and it waits; feels the rain beating down, cool rivulets of water running. It hears near silent footsteps. It smells damp and dirt and blood. It feels whispered fingers ghosting, trailing through the rain on its back.

Castiel stares at the most important object in the universe. Its real and its there and he reaches out to touch, tentative and shy. The rain is so loud he can't hear his own breath. The world is so sharp he can barely see. Time has stopped and the universe can swallow him, he doesn't need to fight it anymore. The broken pulse flares weakly within his skull.

He raises a weary head and looks straight into the terrified eyes of Dean Winchester.

* * *

Dean stares at Castiel and doesn't believe he's real.

The figure before him stares back, one hand resting lightly on the car. Same dark pants, same shirt, same hair, same face. A filthy, rotten coat clings to him like unwanted skin, its too big in some places, too small in others, and looks like its doing more harm than good. His hands are bare and bloody. His feet are bare and bloody. He holds himself wrong, to stiff and to unsteady. A hunter's mind quickly fills in gaps, some kind of torso injury, but the dark coat is to sodden to show any blood.

'Cas?' Dean manages hoarsely.

Even in the dark his face looks a mess. His skin lies in ruined colours; nightshade purple and sallow blue that swell outwards from his eye. They plunge heavy and deep, fringed by sickly yellow and green. The bruise pools over his cheekbone, seeps down to his jaw.

But at the sound of Deans voice, he still flickers with timorous hope.

He's a complete and utter wreck; exhausted and broken, and so completely overpowered by the world he's unmastered. He is undone, soaked to the bone in heavy rainfall. But he's standing and staring, he's awake and alive. He looks at Dean and though Dean and after _everything_ he's been through, he's still fucking standing. He is unbeatable. And completely beaten.

'Shit,' Dean says, because its all he can think of.

And then he's striding forward and engulfing with leaden arms. Everything becomes sharp proximity; hands on cloth, a small intake of breath, rain dully thudding, creaking muscles and bone. No hello is needed, hello only leads to goodbye. Castiel feels cold and hot, an unsteady pulse that struggles through staggered breaths.

A faint twitch of arms makes Dean think he will hug him back. He tightens his grip, but the next moment a pained gasp escapes. Dean pulls back instantly and Castiel staggers from the small movement. Bad? _Bad_. He grips the angels shoulders, tries to find his eyes, half steadying, half supporting, wholly at a loss.

'Woah. That hurt?'

For a second Dean thinks he wont speak; he spots the thick collar of mottled bruises that strangle fiercely around his neck. But then Castiels face goes slack, he chokes out, 'can't heal,' and his voice feels like a miracle.

'Okay,' Dean rasps. 'Thats okay.'

His eyes flicker everywhere, calm and worry overlapping like frantic tides. There is a new pressure at his side and he knows his brother has returned. Sam is soft and steady, as solid as Dean is shaken and, like a thousand times before, is an anchor in the storm. Castiel blinks hazy, pupils slowly dilating, but he's strong and he struggles slowly against the tide.

'Hello, Sam.'

'Hey Cas,' Sam's face flickers from concern to small smiles. 'You look like crap.'

A nod to Dean and he gently takes Castiels arm, moving him nearer to the car. Dean secures his other side, hand hovering an inch above his back, to afraid to touch again. The sodden coat Cas wears smells of damp and rot and the moment they open the back door, the brothers gently pull it off him. As the materiel peels away, Castiel's breath hitches. He watches Sam and Dean whenever he can, barely lucid eyes refusing to leave their faces. They grip him tight and lower him in. The back of his shirt is stained dark.

Dean crouches by the open door. 'You're okay… okay?' he reassures, partly to himself. The rain beats down but he can't feel it anymore. When Cas' eyes half close he dips is head to remain in sight. 'You're not going anywhere, right?'

'Right,' Cas agrees faintly.

Sam reappears with blankets, dry and warm, and gently folds them in place. Cas is cold and clammy, the night air is sodden and its been breathing damp chills for days. They wonder how long he's been subjected to it. They wonder how long he's been like this.

'We're gunna get you back to the motel,' Sam murmurs in steady softness. 'Hold on till then, okay?'

Cas blinks, pupils struggling to stay afloat in their pitiful ocean.

'Cas?' Dean hesitates, almost reaches out. 'Hey,' he says instead, because he can't think of anything else.

'-lo, Dean,' soft and slurred.

Dean looks to Sam, who seems as lost as he does. Not because they don't know what to do, but because they are dealing with the impossible. They'd given up. They gave up. They gave _him_ up. Nine slowly crawling months and they stopped trying after one. They had turned their backs in defeat and, though they always looked back with vapid words of prayer, in the end they had still walked away.

Cas breathes out in a shudder, eyes dropping shut again. His forehead contorts from smooth to heavy lines, the muscles in his throat tense as he forces a swallow through throttled flesh. '…c'n hear,' he mumbles beside them.

'What?'

But he wearily shakes his head. A firm hand grips and pulls at Dean's shoulder as Sam ushers them out of the rain. They are dripping and soaked, colder than they realise. But inside the Impala breathes buzzing silence and calm. The world outside drums relentless, the world inside is muffled and warm. Dean swallows thickly, tries not to look at the hidden worry inside his brothers eyes.

'I c'n hear you,' Cas murmurs out into the silence.

Dean frowns through the mirror, Sam cranes around.

'Hear us?'

Maybe it was meant as a reassurance, a gentle reminder of _I'm still here_. Maybe it was half-conscious acknowledgement, _I know that its you_. But Cas is blearily searching their faces, forcing himself through exhaustion to look, willing them to understand, to find stillness in the deep. They find it; its relief.

_I can hear you. _He is saying. And the _again_ is implied. _I heard you before and I can hear you now. _Dean looks to Sam and knows he understood it too. With no more than simple words, Castiel acknowledges_ I heard your prayers_.

'We've got you, Cas.'

And maybe they hadn't abandoned him after all.

* * *

_Much Cas whumping and water imagery/metaphors._

_And thus ends sort of part 1 of this story, or at least in my head its kinda split into several bigger chunks. So congrats, you made it through a chunk! A million thanks to everyone who's followed/commented so far. You guys are awesome._


	8. Now Arise

**Now Arise**

_'Where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me?'_

_'…Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful.'_

.

Castiel emerges from depths unfathomable.

He feels thick and heavy, like a weighted pressure so old and so deep it lives its life in thickened silence. Hands keep moving him, rolling him and lifting him; and most of the time he's completely lost to the sensation. His eyes don't seem to be working anymore. There is a gentle moving pressure on the back of his skull, it tips and lilts as his head drifts sluggishly sideways. The voices in the air sound like whale songs.

Hands move him again, grip under tender shoulders and wrench him up. He has no energy to flinch though, he barely has energy to breath.

Things keep growing heavy and light, weight like clammy skin peeled off him, weight like downy comfort wrapped around. Dean and Sam support him and he thinks he's an anchor pulling them down. They haven't done the tests, why hadn't they done the tests? He might not be real. Might be something else. Light grows and shrinks as Castiel sluggishly blinks, but he doesn't really see. They should really run the tests. He tries to tell them that, when the world is calm enough to allow him to speak, but Dean just shakes his head.

'Shut up, Cas,' and his voice is nothing but gentle.

The world curls away into smoke.

* * *

Castiel jolts from brightness unbearable.

There is pressure on his chest, but it pushes up the wrong way. It makes fragile bones around weakened lungs squeeze taught against his breath. Air is thick. Hard like stone. On his front, he's on his front. A voice is trying to make him understand. _We need to fix your back_. Its hard to hear it over the grating pants. He barely remembers what its like to not be drowning.

His eyes pick out a table squatting ugly and prominent. It warps, melts, bends the wrong way. Everything is moving, rolling waves that mirror his stomach. Thick fabric flits across his vision, bringing forth a sharp, wet smell. Pressure explodes from his back, sharp and achingly deep. Castiel cries out, struggles weakly, but he can't flight it, hands hold him firmly down. The fabric appears again, only now it smells of blood.

Stabbing heat suddenly wrenches through his flesh. A pained gasp escapes. The strong muscles of his back shudder and twitch as cold needles stab forcefully through. Then comes the slow burn of thick thread being pulled, jerking with tiny tugs through sinews and skin. His back uncoils into flame, searing and blistering fire. His screams are weakened choking, they sound akin to sobs.

The world shivers away into vehement sparks.

* * *

Castiel plummets from heights unbreathable.

He slams back into the world like fury. He remembers, recalls, relapses. Heaven and the angels and the things that drive him mad. They cry out 'relent!' and Castiel has little choice but to obey. Something is falling fast. He is here, with no strength left to fight. He is here, with no strength left at all to keep the memories away.

With a bitten-back grimace, Castiel slams his eyes open, forces his pupils to accept the onslaught of light. The world shrieks visions at him, then he is staring blearily up into a face.

'Woah there,' says the face, and its lips are out of sync with its voice. 'Take it easy, Cas.' And when Castiel offers no response it goes on to say, 'are you with me? Hey...' and snaps its fingers in front of him with horrifying cracks.

The cracks prompt echoes. The echoes begin to scream. The next second the fingers disappear and the face mutters, 'Jesus!'

Pressure burrows into his straining muscles, someone clenches bone-tight around his arms. He is lightly shaken, a garbled voice talks worry. But he can't answer. Pain explodes fresh patterns. His body spasms, he remembers his body now. It rolls sideways and curls in on itself, defenceless. The world and the face blink out as his eyes screw shut.

All he can hear is the sound he swore to forget. A sound he can't block out, not with panting, not with screams. Lightheaded high-pitched buzzing; a jagged, whirring drill. It pushes forward slowly, moving steady and relentless. It eclipses his whole vision until all he sees is black. And then all he can do is to _feel_ it gnaw deep. It crunches pulp and bone as it burrows into his skull. A thousand fissures crack, each one of them will break. Castiel is slavery, helpless bound to blinding pressure. It laughs. It snarls; barks commands and demands servitude. It hurts him to not obey. _Say yes, Castiel._ Cruel, unyielding force. _Say it; thy will be done._

He is flayed into an object. To hammer until he's no use anymore.

Everything lurches as Castiel is pulled vertical. Everything spins as his eyes snap open again. The face is flashing, sharp and fearful before him, but there is comforting warmth now gripping him tight. His head is suddenly cradled, held firm between palms, rough hands made gentle pressing warmly into his skin. Two faces… there are two. He maps them out with his eyes, seeing and only half understanding. Their arms reach forward and they hold him steady.

'It's okay,' Dean growls shakily. 'You're okay.'

Dean.

... Castiels mind cautiously uncoils.

Dean and Sam.

The world seeps away into ice.

* * *

_…I got nothing that points to angel activity, Heavens as quiet as Hell, nada on how Cas could've got out. Makes me think they're planning things. Like a trap? I don't know…_

Castiel seeps from darkness unbound, drifting back into the world like wind.

He floats in the present, blissful freedom from pasts chains. The memories sit dormant, fully awake but content to sleep. Sluggishly, his mind reveals he is lying in a bed; its warm and quiet, first comfort he's felt in months. It would be all to easy just to slip away again. His body is stiff, heavy and weak. Underneath the surface his stomach clenches; aching spasms that make him want to curl up and fade away.

Castiels head is stone wrapped in cotton, his eyes feel unfocused even though he can clearly see. He lets his head drift sideways to take in more of the room. It's vapid and unordinary, like a thousand motel rooms before. But Castiel finds his comfort, and more importantly finds his home. For huddled around a table sit Sam and Dean, they are framed with scribbled sigils and lost amongst piles of books. Snatches of conversation pass between them, they are tired and wan, already deeply burdened without his own troubles to weigh them down.

'Well, we're warded, no way they can find us,' Sam rubs his eyes.

'Basters'll find a way if they're desperate enough,' Dean grunts from behind a book.

'Then we'll deal with them.'

Castiel tries to say, 'they're not looking,' but his throat doesn't quite form the words. So instead he considers trying to sit. He fights against his body recoiling then uses the momentum to try and push himself up. Torn, bandaged hands twinge painfully as they try to lift his weight. He pulls himself lopsided, exhaustion threatening to smother again.

But then the world becomes chaos. Both Sam and Dean leap up, equal faces of worry flash equal comments of 'Cas!'. He blinks at them with hesitance, taken aback by their suddenness. Sam is hurried footsteps. Dean grabs his shoulder and hefts, pulling him up to sitting. Castiel makes noise then, a faint lowing sound from the back of his throat to punctuate dull pain. Dean's face flashes worry, he hasn't moved his hand away.

'You okay?' he asks gruffly, scanning Castiel's face.

Cas glances at the spinning room and hesitates an answer; throat painfully sore. Besides, he doesn't know if he can answer, despite his desire to comply; he doesn't know what he is, let alone if he's okay. So instead he stares at Dean and his head jolts a small shake, something he supposes is answer enough.

Dean's face falls. He lets go.

'Here,' Sam reappears, offering water, 'drink, Cas.'

Castiel obeys, its nice not to think. For a brief moment his eyes slide shut, submitting to exhaustion with temporary relief. But he forces them open again. Brings himself back to Sam and Dean. They sit side by side on the opposite bed, watching as though he is a new discovery.

'You've been out of it near two days,' Dean comments. He glances at Sam and they hold a conversation with their eyes. 'We should, uh, get you some food. Humans gotta eat and all that,' his gaze flickers sadly over Castiel.

Sam says, 'how do you feel? Hows the pain?' and almost reaches out. But then seems to falter and instead smooths his fingers through his hair.

'Distant,' Cas manages to croak.

Sam nods _good_ and a fraction of tension leaks from Dean. 'Yeah,' he says, 'we, uh, pumped you full of morphine.'

Castiel blinks at this, unsure, but Dean continues with, 'y'know, for the pain. We used it all up, actually. Not that we had much to begin with but, it, uh, stopped the screaming, so…' Castiel remembers, hopes it wont repeat. Dean shifts slightly and adds. 'Sam said he'd get more, case you need it, right Sam?' he looks pointedly at his brother.

'Yeah,' Sam agrees. 'I spoke to Garth yesterday.'

'Garth?' Dean seems suddenly thrown. 'Why?'

'Apparently he's got medical connections or something,' Sam's face widens into an open shrug. 'I just wanted to ask if there was an easy place to get some supplies, and then he mentioned his contact. He said he'd get back to me.' He defends Deans sharp scrutiny with a, 'hey, no point stealing if we can freeload.'

Dean says, 'huh...' and its not quite displeasure, but still laden with distrust.

Castiel basks in their voices, hardly caring what they say. The bed is soft and warm, its covers piling happily over him. Sam and Dean's voices are as solid and real as the prayers. They hold back their questions and he's thankful for it. It hurts to speak, and whatever they ask he wont be able to answer. Deep inside he knows it will still happen, there'll come a time when they'll ask nonetheless, and when they do he'll have to suffer for it. But he probably deserves that.

His thoughts are interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

It's followed by stilted silence and an exchange of looks from Sam and Dean.

Castiel can feel the weight pulling him gently down again, strong and insistent, smoothing his eyelids shut. He fights it best he can, struggling to stay coherent as Dean palms his gun and moves towards the door. There is a clunk and a click, then the door peeps open.

Standing boldly in the gap is a woman. She is a thin lipped smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

'Dean and Sam Winchester?'

The faint smile curls.

'I'm here for Cas.'

* * *

_Quotes are from Job 17:15 and James 5:16_

_This chapter... man, y'know when you just stare at something for too long? You guys were so supportive of the last one (thank you so much) I wanted to make sure it wouldn't disappoint. Also taking bets on mystery woman, who or what d'ya think she is?_


	9. Analysis

**Analysis**

A gun has never been pointed so fast.

'Jesus Christ!'

The woman leaps back, presses a hand to her heat, raises the other one in the hair. Dean has to almost hold back a growl as she weakly steadies herself, 'Okay, she breathes deeply, 'wasn't quite expecting that.'

'You're not taking him.'

She pauses, lowers one hand. Her eyes flicker up and down him, bypassing the gun to look steadily into his face. 'Didn't think that was an option.' and he knows she's not afraid.

Dean clenches his teeth, feels the breath of the door as it widens behind him. Sam is suddenly there. He is solid mountainous stone, a gun of his own held steady. The woman takes him in, raises both hands again, then glances around the parking lot as though asking _we're really doing this outside?_

'Who are you?' Sam asks firmly.

She lowers her hands a fraction, cocks a disbelieving look. 'Um, Sarah…?' she says and her voice lilts it into slight confusion. Dean says nothing. The guns don't move and inch.

'Oh, for…' her body instantly goes slack, 'he didn't tell you did he? He's as hopeless as he is helpful!' her face holds hesitant relief. 'Look, I'm not a threat, I'm the contact.'

Sam's gun dips. 'What?'

In the sickly sweet of the night, Sarah takes a breath and resets herself. Her face is rounded and framed by upheld hair, pale eyes glint openly, they show her age and her energy. Her shoulders pull neatly back, arms stay loosely by her sides, she looks up at Sam and Dean with calm, controlled serenity.

'Okay,' its a promise of whats to come. 'I'm going to explain simply and to the point. I know what you do. I know about hunters and demons and ghosts. I'm a doctor, a good one. Lived a normal life till three years ago when a ghoul killed my partner,' she checks their reactions before continuing. 'And, you know how it is, once you're aware of that world its hard to pretend it doesn't exist.'

'You know Garth?' Sam clarifies.

She nods. 'I've been his medical contact since he saved me. He gives me addresses, I meet hunters and fix them up. I don't want to know you. I don't like your world. I'm just here to do my job, help and leave, okay?' before they can answer she nicks her arm with a small knife and pulls out a bottle for them both to see. A rosary floats in the water as she drinks it all down.

Sam relaxes, shoots Dean a look. His brother still hasn't moved, gun trained steadily on the womans head. Its easy to read him, tense and angry, a violent storm wanting to settle but being pushed into raging.

'What did Garth tell you?' Sam asks, trying to bring Dean to trust.

'He gave me this address. Said there were two hunters Sam and Dean,' she nods to each of them, 'and someone called Cas who needs medical help,' as though to further prove herself she slips off a bag from her shoulder and holds it open. Inside nestle bandages and bottles, antibiotics, pain relief.

Dean still hasn't moved. And Sam knows he is not retreating, but then neither is he advancing, instead balancing a knifes edge of frustrated acceptance. The womans words match those Sam said to Garth. He thinks he trusts her. _Wants_ to trust her. Taking charge, he lays a hand on Deans arm, gently pushing it down and lowering his gun.

* * *

Inside the room, Sarah sets her bag on the table and begins routing through. She lays out bottles and bags of fluid, needles and crisp clean dressings. Nestled against the headboard on the far bed is Cas, he is exactly where they left him, quiet and still save for shallow breaths. His face is lost amongst bruising and his eyes are closed.

Sarah straightens and glances at him. 'Want to give me some basics before I start?'

Dean is glowering, standing stiftly between Castiel and her. He says nothing, even raises skeptical eyebrows and presses his mouth more firmly together. Sam know this is on him now, he's the speaker, he's in charge. Under her careful stare he begins to weave a gentle lie.

'He's our friend, a hunter too. He's been missing a month…' his mind races over Castiels injuries. 'We found him a few days ago, he said demons got him during a hunt.'

'Demons?' her faces purses, mixes strange understanding with cold consideration. 'That changes things a bit… a month...' she abandons her tools and turns to give them full attention.

'What happened?' but before Sam can answer she raises her hands, reacting to something in Deans face. 'Okay, I get it, I know. You don't wanna talk about it, specially to me. Best to keep it unsaid, right? You don't even know me. But hell, I'm trying to help here. I didn't need to haul my ass two hundred miles for this. If you really don't want to answer, its not like I can make you.'

'We're not sure,' Sam provides, his mind racing. 'We think they tortured him,' Dean shifts minutely, neither protest or acceptance. 'We don't know why.'

She makes a small noise in the back of her throat. 'So, he'll be dealing with psychological trauma as well…' she huffs a sigh and glances over at Cas again, the smallest shudder passes through him, though he does not stir.

'Okay, I'm going to ask him some questions that'll help me know how best to treat him. I'm not a psychiatrist, not here to make it all better or delve into his emotional well-being.' She pauses and offers Dean some attention, fully aware of how long he's been silently glaring. 'Again, I can't make him, or you, tell me anything,' the words _but I'm trying to help _linger unsaid.

Sam looks to Dean, who is stout and unhappy. Sarah has dealt with hunters before. She speaks rough and to the point, doesn't belittle or use unnecessary words. She is smooth and gentle and stern and strict, a business woman with some deeper sincerity.

'Yeah, okay,' Dean finally says.

* * *

'Hey, Cas? Time to rise and shine…'

Dean speaks hurriedly, giving Cas a gentle shake. The angel feels a mixture of far to heavy and far to light. A impulse tenses his muscles and he recoils as he wakes. Dean tries to hold him firmly in his gaze, at the same time looking anywhere but his bruised face. Cas moves his head blearily, coming back to a body thick and heavy. His eyes train upwards and fix unsteadily on Dean.

'C'mon, get up man.'

He pulls off the covers and leans over to help manoeuvre. Gripping Castiel gently, he leans him forward, keeping one hand firm incase he suddenly slumps again. He can feel Sam and the womans eyes burning the back of his neck as he pulls. A moment of confusion then Castiel complies, swinging bare feet to the floor as he sits on the edge of the bed. He is completely pliant, watching Dean sedately as though he doesn't understand.

'What?' he manages at last.

'Theres a woman here to look at your injuries,' Dean explains. 'Garth sent her, I dunno. I reckon she can fuck off but she here so… might as well.'

Castiel swallows thickly, sways, steadies himself then shudders, and Dean inwardly panics _he's really not okay._ Sitting slackly on the bed in just sweat pants and dirty bandages, Cas seems so broken, a fragile heart snapped out of ribs. And still he pushes himself forwards. Gives more, keeps fighting. His eyes waver then blink, and are focused when they open again.

'Okay,' he grates softly, and Dean wishes he'd say more. But at the sound of his acceptance Sam cautiously leads the woman over.

'She knows you were kidnapped by demons,' Dean says loudly and obvious, 'we told her how you went missing last month. When you were _hunting_.' Castiel doesn't react. 'She gunna ask some questions so just _go along with it_. Can you do that?'

A frown creeps its way along Castiel's forehead, the bruising deepening around his eye. But before he can speak, or struggle to, as the case is, the woman steps forward.

'Cas? I'm Sarah, I'm here to look at your injuries.'

Castiel blinks up at her. She stands before him stern and gentle. His face becomes taught and for a second he shrinks in on himself, but then his tired eyes relax and look sadly on. He slowly nods his head.

'First things first,' she's gentle business, soft and commanding, 'I'm going to ask some questions. You don't have to answer, but it'll help me to know certain things. I'm not looking for details, just facts. Afterwards I'll examine you.' She pauses and narrows her eyes at his throat. 'I'd like you to answer sparingly, as few words as possible, I don't want to aggravate any damage.' Castiel's face does not change.

She moves closer, pulls a chair to sit nearby. From her jacket she pulls a notepad and begins thumbing through. Stuck between obvious protection and feeling awkwardly obtrusive, Dean moves back to stand beside Sam. She clicks a pen to life. Castiel watches her quietly, small and solemn and sad. His body is still, his right eye twitches once.

'You remind me of someone,' he finally says. His voice is a tired mess.

She pauses, 'good or bad?'

Castiel doesn't answer.

'I'll take that as bad,' she concludes shooting Dean and Sam a look. Sam offers her a half-hearted shrug as if to say _we don't know_. Dean isn't paying attention, he's watching Cas, eyes flicking over the angel as he tries to understand, but Castiel just looks… lost. Something lurks hidden in his face.

'Well, I'm not that person,' Sarah says, 'or demon.'

Castiel turns his head slightly, angling his gaze away and dropping his eyes.

She finds a fresh page. 'I'll make this quick and simple, okay? Don't think about the answers, just say what first comes to mind. Preferably a 'yes' or a 'no',' Sarah speaks soothingly.

'No thinking,' Cas echoes obediently and it makes Deans stomach plummet.

'Did the demons torture you?'

'No.'

'You have injuries.'

'Yes.'

'From them?'

'Yes.'

Sarah scans her eyes over him and makes another thoughtful noise. On the paper the brothers can see she has written _avoidance of eye contact._

'They hurt you, but you weren't tortured?'

Castiel seems thrown. Sarah makes another note,_ denial of torture, _and then leans forward. 'I've seen this kind of thing before, seen the levels of stockholm syndrome,' Castiel looks up at her. 'Maybe you might not think it was torture, but you've just told me you got your injuries from them.'

'… yes.'

'So they hurt you?'

Castiel pauses, his breath still in his chest. His eyes dart around the room, searching answers to questions unseen. A heartbeat laster he speaks again, slow and careful, as though he's chosen a different path to tread. 'They…' he glances at Dean, 'corrected behaviour.'

The brothers freeze.

While Sarah accepts his words as some form of admittance, Dean and Sam are suddenly plunges into a different world. Because this isn't fabrication. Not anymore. This isn't Cas covering for a hastily thrown together story. Isn't even Cas talking about a demon fight. Replace demons with angels, this is simple truth. _This is what they did to him, what he suffered for_.

Castiel speaks a careful monotone, his body is still barely seeming to breathe; he watches Sarah with guarded sorrow, coated in strange acceptance and smothered under layers.

'Sam tells me they found you a few days ago,' she continues briskly. 'How did you escape?'

'They let me go.'

She frowns, 'what do you mean?' just as Dean jolts out a, '_What_?'

Castiel becomes faint confusion, hesitates on repeating himself, concludes by just looking lost. Sam and Dean exchange a fleeting look that holds a silent conversation. _Why would they?_ Dean is raging. Sam frowns back, mouth a twitching, unhappy line._ After everything; the fight, the threats… Why the fuck would they just let him go? _

'That doesn't sound like something they'd do, the, uh, _demons_,' Sam prompts, quelling Dean's frustration.

Castiel's confusion blends into deep thought with a frown. He stares down at his raw hands, nestled haphazardly in bandages, and then tries again with different words.

'They… discarded me.'

Sarah takes up the flow again. 'Discarded is an interesting word.'

Castiel scrutinises her. 'They were finished.'

'With what?'

His eyes narrow further. 'Me.'

'What do you mean, Cas?' Sam speaks open gentleness. 'What did they do?'

Its almost the opposite of a flinch. Breath and energy coiling in. Castiels throat works thickly, his back tenses, his stomach curls. Tiny, barely noticeable flickers of movement that say nothing at all but scream everything at once. His eyes dart again, body slowly pulling back into tension. Somewhere smothered in the back of his throat escapes a distressed noise.

'Is there anything in particular you want to tell us?' Sarah is crooning gently.

Castiel breathes out and closes down.

'What they did to you?'

He doesn't speak.

'Cas?' she coaxes.

The silence within the room becomes thick and solid, pressing itself against the brothers, wrapping their stomachs into horrendous knots. Sarah looks hard at Castiels face. His gaze pierces the floor unwavering. A wall of ice that can't be broken.

'You don't have to answer,' Dean cuts in suddenly.

He is stillness and tension, lips thinned in unhappiness; his eyes are flicking from Castiels face to his hands. He's had that look before, _this has gone far enough_. Sam follows the gaze down and gasps when he sees the blood.

Castiel is still. Castiel is calm. Castiel is trapped inside himself a screaming writhing beast. Deep in his eyes nestles a cold primordial scream, strangled blue opening painfully wide. It's like the opposite of a flinch. He breathes as though its his last. Hands are clenched so tightly that blood oozes thick between his fingers...

* * *

_SurpriseChapterAttack.  
This one goes out to Saileasa, who has mastered the helpful pester._

_Thanks as always for the wonderful things you say, honestly brightens my day and gives me the spark to keep this story going._


	10. Examination

**Examination**

_Castiel is still. Castiel is calm. Castiel is trapped inside himself a screaming writhing beast. Deep in his eyes nestles a cold primordial scream… Hands are clenched so tightly that blood oozes thick between his fingers..._

Sarah snaps up from her chair, 'Lets move on.'

Her voice is sharp insistency. It cuts thick tension, bleeds it back to clipped order. _No more _it commands, and the world submits to her cold tones. Without a backwards glance she moves to the table, rifles through implements she'd carefully laid out before. Dean watches in silence, because anything is better than watching Castiel.

'Make it quick,' he mutters. She nods but doesn't look up.

Sam can only stare at the angel, who jolted back into the world when the woman spoke. A mass of exhaustion bundled up in tender skin, he is grazed and bruised and still marred with patches of dried blood and clinging dirt. Breath rises and falls, slight stutters of painful lungs. He stares down at his hands, freshly bloodied. They are shaking.

Theres a forest of glass, somewhere there in his head. A desolated forest that was first shattered and then burned. Cas opens his mouth, but doesn't seem to remember the right thing to say. Sam has watched him fight hopelessness and abandon, has watched him come undone under the weight of all his misgivings. For a brief moment, Cas raises his eyes to meet him. Sam doesn't think he's ever seen desolation quite like this.

'S'okay, Cas,' he whispers, and he's never felt so much hate that his words don't sound important enough.

Castiel blinks tiredly back.

From the table, Sarah straightens. In her hands and pockets are small tools of the trade, surgical scissors, anaesthetic wipes, stethoscope and latex gloves. She pulls these over her fingers, each little snap of rubber making Castiel twitch. Sam tries not to notice, and then feels something pushed into his chest. He looks down to see Sarah's notepad, and by extension, Sarah herself, looking expectantly at him.

'While I examine, will you take notes?' its not a question.

'Uh, sure,' as soon as the words slip out, she gives a curt nod and moves back towards Castiel. The angel fixates his eyes on the floor as she approaches, his body goes still once again.

The last sentence to be scrawled on the pad reads _erratic behaviour indicates mental disturbance (search for signs of possible brain damage?)_ and Sam swallows down rising turmoil. Cold, calculated words. They hit hard as stone. _She doesn't know the whole story_, he tries to comfort himself, but then neither do they. Sam is tired of the angry helplessness that seems an unhappy narrative of his life.

He turns to a fresh page, hoping his brother won't catch sight of the words. Dean is still glowering at the woman, still standing arms folded, still fighting thunder and fury, and Sam knows its only there to mask the clamouring fear lurking underneath. Dean is close to bolting, he can barely look at Cas.

'Okay,' Sarah says, like its the cusp of a new dawn.

The angels fevered eyes travel flickered panics across the room, jolting fast in their fear; _feet, chair, hands, wall, floor, hands, Sam, wall, hands, Dean_ until they finally fixate upon Sarah. She is waiting for him, trying to assess, to sooth, to give him time. But they way he stares, unwavering intent, its more like he's waiting for her. Waiting for the next order. Or ordeal.

'Ready?' she says softly.

Cas swallows, thick and heavy. 'I- what should-'

'It's okay,' she soothes, and he falls silent. 'I'm going to examine your injuries now.'

The world holds its breath as the woman slowly takes him in. Tall, lean and muscular, body strong and healthy considering what it has undergone. He holds himself weakly, feverishly, defeatedly, but even through his laxness his strength lies defined. His torso is bare save for the bandages that swarth it. Old, faded sweatpants cover his lower half.

Sarah tries to understand an eternity within his face. It is old and kind, cold and innocent, it is wide-eyed youth that houses gentle, aged wisdom. He is etherial and incomprehensible and everything and anything. And still so human, so hurt and tired and afraid. His eyes are unknown oceans, it hurts when he looks at her. But it also hurts when he looks away.

She glances over at the brothers, 'is he able to stand?'

The instant it is said, Castiel begins to move. He pulls up heavy arms and presses tattered hands into the bed. A slight pause as he steadies himself, a slight catching of his breath as he tries to make his ruined body work.

'Cas! Don't move,' Dean snaps.

He strides forward as Sam explains, _he's just woken up, been unconscious, feet are cut up, weak and fevered, not up for standing_. As Sarah nods and asks quiet questions, Dean places firm hands on Castiels shoulders. Cas blinks up at him, lost in incomprehension, as Dean applies gentle pressure to keep him from getting up.

'Just stay sitting, buddy, okay?' he says gruffly.

Very gently, Castiel nods. He lets his arms go slack and his hands slip off the bed. One of them leaves a bloody stain where he'd been clutching the covers.

He opens his mouth to struggle through his pains. 'Dean, I-',

'Don't worry 'bout it,' Dean cuts. 'We'll deal with it later.' He doesn't want to see it, can't see it, _won't_ bring himself to see Cas shatter apart again. Molten ice crawls through his chest, but he refuses to let it touch his face. Because Cas shouldn't have to see him hurting.

'He's got a fever,' Sam is saying, 'and a couple of the wounds look infected; shoulder and hand. Uh, he had bad exposure to the elements before we found him, and he's in shock.' He speaks with helpful intent but careful and considered, Dean can hear it in his tones, knows Sam is trying to appease. Dean wants to scream _we're taking care of him_. _We don't need you_.

'Have you checked for signs of other illnesses?'

Sam nods, 'we dealt with his hypothermia, don't think he's got anything else…'

'Well, one less thing I have to check then.' Sarah comments dryly, 'I'll leave you with some antibiotics to combat anything else that might crop up. So… I wont bother looking for signs of dehydration, starvation, exhaustion…' she tosses the stethoscope back onto the table, it lands with a clatter and Castiel blinks a flinch. 'as they're most likely a given. His motor senses will be highly depleted,' she continues, 'the fever wont be helping with that.'

She steps towards them and Dean realises he hasn't moved his hands. Cas is leaning slightly into them, and its not out of necessity but hopeless need. He is small, unfocused, unguarded. His head is bowed and Dean watches as his brow flickers and tightens in response to unknown pains. Its to much, all to much, because look at what he's done, look at whats happened, _its my fault_.

'Dean?' he wants her voice to vanish. 'Can I continue?' he wants her gone.

'Yeah,' he croaks. He wants to fix all the things he cannot fix. Instead he says, 'Cas, you good?'

Castiel nods, to tired to look up. Before he pulls away, Dean gives the angels shoulders a small squeeze, then walks back to Sam with his mouth in his hand. Whatever small comfort his brother tries to give, he ignores.

'I'm just going to check under your bandages,' Sarah explains briskly, 'you just sit tight. Sam is keeping note of my observations.'

Castiel blinks, lax and unguarded. 'Observations,' he echoes to himself. Dean feels his stomach plummet.

She pulls her chair closer, sits and leans forward till there is barely any space between them. Gently but firmly she reaches out and takes Castiels hand, resting it on her lap as she lightly cuts away the gauze. He watches sadly, like its a foreign thing.

The bandages peel away, taking the expanse of blood with them. Underneath lies a mess of shredded skin; cuts and heavy grazes that seep over his palm. Sarah nods to herself, lightly brushes the wounds with antiseptic wipes. 'Impact abrasions,' she says over her shoulder to Sam, 'very heavy on right hand. One open gash freshly bleeding,' she pushes pressure and Castiels face goes hard. 'This one needs stitching,' she says.

Sam nods, makes notes, tries to ignore Castiels clenching jaw. The motion is repeated with the other hand and the same results are declared. 'Impact abrasions,' Sarah says again, then finally looks to Cas, 'do you remember falling?'

He struggles with new thought. 'I fell,' he finally manages, 'but… I haven't fallen.'

She says nothing and simply stares with incomprehension. Dean and Sam understand. His mess of words makes sense to them, but the woman just looks concerned. Castiels face falls and his eyes curl into quiet panic. He drops them down to stare at his hands, both resting palms upwards in her lap.

Sarah sighs, 'might as well stitch it now,' she says, pulling sterilised needles and thread from her pocket, 'you ready?'

He looks timorously at her, injured hand starting to slowly curl. With gentle insistency, Sarah opens it flat again and prepares her implements. Sam watches as the needle pricks then slides through tender flesh, again and again and again. Its ghosts echoes for him and he rubs his own palm. Dean's hands are balled fists. Castiels face jitters with agitated pain, but he makes no noise.

Time ticks by in slow jolts, each crunch of the second hand eating away at them where they stand. Sam busies himself looking through the notepad, Dean fidgets without ever moving. When she is done, Sarah applies clean new bandages around Castiels hands and wrists, wrapping them firm and tight as though it might keep the pain away.

'Going to check out your chest and back now,' she says as she begins to cut the old dressings away. While she does she nods at Sam and says 'looking at his wrists there's no indication he was tied or restrained.'

Sam swallows thickly, 'he mentioned the demons had a cage,' the lie slips out easily enough.

The bandages fall away and Cas breathes deep with the sudden loss of pressure. Sarah begins again, gentle and withdrawn. 'Right, well, definite damage to the upper torso, heavy bruising around right side,' her fingers ghost over beaten flesh. 'This matches his hand injuries… though its the other side that seems to be worse for wear,' Castiel breathes sharply as more pressure is applied. 'Quite a few fractured ribs, possibility of some being broken, more bruising… this wont be helping with any respiratory problems,' she comments. 'Also, please note "heightened temperature",' she frowns as she feels her way over trembling skin. Her hands reach the centre of his chest, 'actually, it seems to be spiking from here…'

Cas shudders, physically rocking backwards away from her touch. Its a slow shaky recoil, like he's to tired to even flinch. A small noise escapes him, something twisted between a moan and gasp. Its full of fearful pain; terror he quickly tries to swallow. Sarah instantly pulls away.

As soon as the pressure leaves, Cas shakes himself. Blinks a small flinch, eases forced tension into quivering muscles. Something almost apologetic lingers about him. His eyes flicker to the brothers like he knows they saw. Like it was something important. Like he is trying to explain.

'Cas?' Sarah asks quietly.

'Its…' he works his mouth around the word "fine" like he can't bring himself to lie. 'Please continue,' he mumbles instead, voice to low and quiet to convey anything deeper. His eyes have retuned to the floor, sunken and hollow and sad.

'Okay...'

Dean sucks in a sharp breath, his complete stillness suddenly seeming to waver. A moment holds him in place, the monumental pause between when a leap becomes a plunge. Sam doesn't understand, but he _knows_, he knows of heavy burden and the pitiful anger his brother feels. He reaches out and grips Dean's arm just as his brother reaches for the door.

Sarah is talking again, perhaps to Cas or perhaps to them, but for the heavy moment they are not listening.

_What do I do? _Dean seems to ask in despair. _How can I fix this when its my fault it happened?_ And Sam doesn't waste thoughts of comfort and correction. Thats not what Dean wants, even if its what he deserves. _We'll fix it._ Sam tries to convince. _We stay and we fix it and he'll forgive us. Cas is strong, he'll pull through._ Dean shakes his head, hand still hovering by the door. _It's never been like this before, Sam. Not hell, or the cage. Look at him, he's…_ Sam firms his jaw, pulls Dean back into the room. _Its not your fau- _Deans eyes snap away. Of course he wont believe that.

'Sam?' Sarah's voice filters through. He focuses back on her, she is kneeling on the bed, hand hovering lightly over Castiel's back. They see pained empathy in her eyes, know already what she is witnessing. Dean sinks into a chair and stairs firmly at the wall.

'We, uh, don't know how he got that,' Sam says. His voice sounds like it doesn't belong to him. He listens to Cas breathing; in and out, and in and out.

Across the angels back lies a horrendous tear. One, long, jagged rip that fissures through his flesh like a chasm cracking the earth apart. It rips from right shoulder to left hip, jolting unevenly through the skin. There is no measure to it, no sense of balance or evenness. The deeper areas leak blood. Sections are already scarred with dark thread that pinches split skin back together. Other parts are untouched, flesh to severely burned and blistered.

Sam swallows as he thinks of it, knows Dean is purposefully _not_ thinking of it. The gash engulfs Castiels back, cuts through his shoulder blade, curls along his spine, scores deeply into soft muscles and nerves. Spread out from either end are hundreds of tiny tendrils. They burst and flare forth, a thousand creeping cracks. Over his shoulder they spread like branches, over his hip they sink like roots.

'Have you ever seen lighting scars?' Sarah finally says.

When the silence becomes to much, Sam stutters, 'no…'

She takes a breath, as though steadying herself. 'They're… quite a rare phenomenon. Sometimes called lightning flowers, a Lichtenberg figure, you can tell from the floral-like patterning. They're usually pretty benign, the scarring fades-'

'Are you saying he got struck by lighting?'

Cas raises his head from when he'd been staring mutely at the floor. The movement brings them back into focus and Sarah cranes her head round to look at him hopefully.

'Cas?' Sam says gently.

His face sinks into a frown before glancing up at him. His eyes skitter to Dean's hulking back, then flicker to Sam once more. They carry hopeful intent, swirling amongst the fatigue, like perhaps if he looks hard enough then Sam will understand.

'I've seen someone with such a thing before,' Sarah supplies quickly. 'They were possessed, which makes sense since demons do displace electrical charges.' She directs her words to Cas, 'we're you possessed?'

He shakes his head, drops his eyes, and the moment is lost. Sam adds more lies about Cas having the anti-possession tattoo, a forcefully unfunny story about getting it on his ass. Sarah smiles politely and Castiel says nothing to counter, but Sam still captures something lurking deep within his eyes, behind the strange silent sorrow and the misplaced guilt. Something akin to an apology, desolation unbound. It burns him how hopelessly exhausted Cas looks.

'Either way,' Sarah motions to his back, 'this is… horrendous.' Out of the corner of his eye, Sam sees Dean flinch.

'It's nothing like any lightning scar I've ever heard off, so much more severe… I assume you sterilised it fully? Good… With the burns, I don't know if stitching was the best, although…' she leans closer and reaches out. Sam sees Castiels face harden. 'Hmmmm, no perhaps it was wise,' she continues. 'I'm not going to do anything more to it, don't want to risk it... I don't know how to categorise this, uh, perhaps just put "severe scarring and burns to back".'

As Sam writes, she begins treating the wound. Strange ointments are gently applied, thick padding held in place with long rolls of gauze. She twists the bandages around Castiels body, adding extra layers around his ribs. He sits silently through it all. As the gauze is secured, Sam murmurs stilted encouragement, to quiet to even reach the angels ears. Sarah glances up at him though, before she turns and reaches towards Cas.

'Now,' she murmurs, 'lets take a look at that eye.'

Castiels gaze snaps up.

A strange static fills the room. The whine of blood in ears pulses louder. Sam doesn't notice, to busy making notes. Sarah doesn't notice, to busy with examination. Dean doesn't notice, to lost in his misery. But the pitching thickness is there, strange tendrils and unseen currents. Unspoken terrors as Sarah cups her hand under Cas' chin and steadies his head.

'Heavy bruising around right eye,' she murmurs, 'starting from just above jawline to around the eyebrow and temple,' she breezes her fingers across his face and Castiels heart gasps a shudder, 'potential fractured cheekbone, from the level of trauma, that might be a given… swollen eyelid, tch, its really bruised…' she leans in closer, 'bloodshot and raw, but he's still able to see. Slight scratching of the cornea, that'll be highly painful for him,' she leans closer, 'possible damage to the lacrimal caruncle,' over her shoulder she explains, 'thats the corner bit.'

Castiel is frozen, his pupils fixed unblinking. His face doesn't move, his face is open fear. There are silent shrieking wails, so painful they must be ignored. Unaware, Sarah turns back to him.

'Actually,' she leans closer, 'there seems to be definite damage to the gland, though its always hard to tell with eyes,' her fingers pull gently at the tender flesh, Castiels chest gasps panicked tremors, 'the bruising definitely stems from there though… like its the focal point. Ground zero… Mnn, note "irritated and inflamed", almost looks like some of the muscle has been scraped away, maybe insertion-' she stops suddenly.

Castiel is frozen. Eyes wide. Eyes screaming. Strangled blue piercing out, unblinking. There is fear, suppressed so deep its barely an echoed scream. And in the sudden silence all they can hear his breathing.

'Cas?' Sarah's fingers slowly go limp.

A thousand stars burn away in the silence.

'…I'm not going to hurt you,' she whispers.

A thousand more burst into life.

'Cas…?' His eyes bore into her.

And with a deep gasp she pulls away.

She is instant speed and fury. Snatches the notepad from Sam, scribbles new things amongst the pages, scribbles harshly as though she's afraid of her own words. When she's done she gathers her things, piles them on the table in front of Dean. He sits up, blinking confusion.

'These are for you,' she says curtly, gesturing to the bottles and bandages and pills. Then she rips out the pages she filled and thrusts them at Sam. He takes them with hesitance and wonders what it was she saw burning in Castiels eyes. Before he can open his mouth to ask, she is speaking again.

'I'm not keeping them,' she gestures to the notes. 'I've done my part, done all I can. So these are for you to use however you see fit. I walk out of here and never think about it again. Thats the way you hunters like it,' and neither of them argue.

'Theres my number if you need me, but I wont be contacting you again,' she glances back at Cas. 'Get him hydrated, give him the painkillers and antibiotics, I've left instructions for dosages. Watch out for pneumonia developing, and for infection spreading but other than that you've treated his injuries fine. Keep 'em clean and redressed. From observation of his reactions stay away from his eye and…'

Her mouth becomes a knot and it takes a moment for her to work it loose again.

'… like I said, I'm not a psychiatrist. Or a brain specialist, so either way its your shit to deal with…' and the pause sounds again, heavy and hard. 'Don't… don't jump to conclusions, I-I'm not a specialist, but perhaps look into the footnotes...'

She looks up at them in tern, gives respectful nods, 'Sam, Dean,' then pulls open the door.

She doesn't look back.

In the stillness after her wake, Dean pulls himself to a stand. He moves forward and takes the slightly crumpled notes from Sams unresisting hand. They are mostly filled with bullet-points, neat and tidy scrawls that give way to his brothers familiar curls.

Down at the bottom of the last page, are some hurried words. Underneath her careful noting of _negative_ _reactions to being "observed" and objects near face,_ some extra words sit hard and heavy on the page.

_his behaviour was "corrected", then he was "discarded".  
__"they were finished with me"… like they were looking for something? or testing something?…_

Smaller writing, more fearful, _experimentation?_

And next to an earlier scrawl, where she had questioned _erratic behaviour indicates mental disturbance (search for signs of possible brain damage?)_ there was a hurried and panicked word, squashed into the margin as though it was sinful, as though it shouldn't have been written at all.

Dean read it, re-read it, handed the paper back to Sam, and walked out the door.

* * *

_Oh man, so sorry for the delay. I've been ridiculously sick the past week, bedridden for days. And obviously my brain decided it couldn't think enough to write with... So, consequently I re-wrote the chapter several times and went slightly mad. Hope it doesn't read too differently, I think I just need to get it out otherwise I'll spend another week fretting over it!_

_You guys are seriously amazing, thank you so much for your follows and reviews. They mean so much to me!_


	11. So Lets Talk

**So Lets Talk**

Two stand side by side.

They stare out into the boundless, sightless skism before them. They stand side by side but never together. Together is for lesser beings, those that carry weight and need, and no understanding of what lies beyond their own limited horizons. So the two stand side by side and always alone.

It would speak of great travesty to say they are of opposition; to say they are black and white, fire and ice, hope and desolation. It is a sharp lesson to learn, perhaps one of the hardest of them all, that there is never truly a good and evil. There is no right and wrong, no simple path to take. Humanity is so tragically skewered that way.

So instead stand the two, side by side. They are separate ends of the chess board and yet identical pieces coloured the same. One is of nothingness and the other is everything. One is boundless, unaged eternity; the other is heavy handed immortality, weathered by time.

One says, 'you spoke my name into the either.'

'I did,' the other replies comfortably.

'For a purpose? Or were you simply stretching your petty need to infuriate?'

'My, my, some harsh words today.'

'No more than is deserved.'

A little swallowed chuckle bubbles forth, its rich and dark and not at all pleasant. 'Ouch. And here I thought we had an understanding.'

'An understanding? Please,' one turns to face the other and it can't be called pity, can't even be called disgust, and hatred is too human a thing. 'Conditions have been set.'

'And I'm honouring them. A man of my word.'

'Hardly a man.'

'Potato, potato. Human expressions are always so fixated on gender pronouns. Point is, I always honour a deal. You should know that well enough, Naomi.'

Her face pulls slowly into tightness, all patience lost.

'Why did you seek me?'

'Straight to business like always,' this one is something misshapen; one who fears nothing and yet still feels humanity pressing against it. 'Just thought I'd inform that your little … _subject_ has been seen wandering the earth.'

The conversation changes to sharp silence, biting as hard as frost. Silence that in unreadable, incomprehensible. The other, who more feels the biting ticks of time tries again, adding a coy lilt in the hope it tickles annoyance.

'All on his lonesome, I heard tell. Just him and the nasty world, until he found his way to humanity that is,' a small gesture is made, perhaps a shrug if more inclined. 'I also heard no one is watching him.'

'We see all,' Naomi says.

'Yes, yes, all-seeing, all-mastering, blah blah. I _mean_, no one is actively keeping track of him.'

'I am aware.'

'Ah, and are you aware of the company he now keeps?'

'Yes.'

'Really?' a reverberation of faint surprise. 'I didn't think you were that stupid.'

Naomi is endless eternity, light and unbroken horizons. She looks at the other and sees only bitter clasping ideals, tastes retribution and hears contorted thoughts. Retaliation hangs in the balance. Words of power waiting to be spoken, pulsing syllables that carry the weight of armageddon. But instead she changes dynamic and says;

'This is all you wanted?'

'I guess,' a nonchalant tone, and the figure turns to look into abrupt thin air.

'Should work on your people skills,' it mutters to the nothingness.

* * *

Late morning pulls itself sluggishly through thick skies. It stretches fat limbs and breaths out scents of sickly sweet. Sam Winchester stands outside the dim world of the motel room and soaks in the sun. To his face is clasped a phone, which he speaks tonelessly into.

'Sure, Garth… So, you didn't know she'd turn up at our door?' he doesn't bother to hide his scepticism.

It been twelve hours since Dean walked away.

'Right… I get it,' he admonishes quietly. 'Just trying to help, huh?'

A worn shoe toes dirt into dust with a morbid kick.

'Maybe next time a little warning…?'

The impala waits quietly next to him, a vigilant watcher over their temporary hold. Sam clicks open its door and reaches over the warm dash. His searching fingers find their familiar treasure, the giant feather that has become a strange security to him.

'I'm trusting she'll stay confidential- Yeah, I believe you, thats why I said I'm _trusting_,' he sighs. 'Okay, Garth. Signing off now.'

Short goodbyes are muttered, clipped promises to look out for Kevin, to keep them updated with any news, to keep safe. The phone is dropped into a pocket and Sam turns his tired face to the sun. His fingers twirl the feather slowly, its feel and movement soothingly familiar. The sunlight glints over its faded stains.

This is how Dean finds him, distorted by his own haze of sleepless ruin. As his footsteps carry him closer, Sam opens his eyes. His face twisting into every single emotion Dean spent the night guiltily imagining. In the harsh sunlight and the sour taste of sleeplessness, they sting all the more.

'Good night?' Dean can hear the frustration in Sams voice, but its piled over with unhappy worry and concern. _What happened?_ lingers unsaid, _where did you go? Are you okay? Tell me whats going on_.

'Cas?' Dean asks in response, the unspoken _I'm not going to talk about it, don't ask, please don't ask_, thrumming loudly behind his eyes. Sam opens and closes his mouth, but then his body goes slack and his gaze sink to the ground.

'He's asleep, has been since you left. Didn't try to say anything, just sat blankly till I got him to lie down, then he was out like a light.'

Dean feels his body nod without it even moving. The knotted ice inside him wants to chide Sam, wants him to snap _you left him on his own in there?_ but how can he say that when the last twelve hours he's lived as a coward? When he would rather flee into a void of non-existence than face his friend?

Sam is watching him carefully, fingers tracing subconscious little patters over the giant feather in his hands. And then, very quietly he says, 'you okay?'

And before he even realises, Dean says 'no,' instead of 'I'm fine'. And then he opens his mouth and a thousand words clamour over his tongue but refuse to spill forth. They clog his throat, build behind his eyes, make his vision squirm. And Sam is just stupidly staring and Dean wants to punch him because he can't help him, can't heal him, can't comfort him.

But then Sam just grabs him.

He digs his fingers into Deans shoulders and holds him still as stone.

Then, with all the worlds compassion in his eyes, he calmly says, 'its because we don't understand.'

Dean blinks at him.

'We don't know what happened,' Sam voice speaks steady. 'We don't know why we should be angry, or who to be angry at. We don't even know what to be angry about. We don't know anything, Dean, and thats terrifying.'

Brushing lightly along the back of his neck, Dean can feel the stiff barbs of Castiels weightless feather.

'But we will,' Sam promises.

* * *

Dean stares down at the crumpled paper in his hands. The words that cover it are Sam's hesitant scrawl, as familiar to him as his own skin is. He must have been researching all night. Dean blinks blurriness from his eyes, the silence of the motel room maddeningly deafening.

_Lobotomy._

The paper squirms. Dean forces himself to keep reading.

_Lobotomy._

_An outdated method of pacifying aggressive mental patients._

_The procedure - An ice pick-like instrument is forcefully inserted through the eye socket, piercing the bones of the orbital structure, and probing sharply into the brain. It is then whisked back and forth, slicing through the frontal lobes._

The words blur and drift before him. Dean begins again.

_Lobotomy…_ _ice pick forcefully inserted through, piercing, probing, sharply into the brain… whisked back and forth, slicing through the frontal lobes…_

He is complete and utter nothingness.

_Lobotomy... slicing through the frontal lobes..._

_The function of the fontal lobes - planning, reasoning, judgement, impulse control. They allow us to understand social responses, to recognise consequences for actions, to make the choice between wright and wrong_…

_...to exhibit free will_.

The paper crumples, but the words still exist, inky black monsters hulking amongst the folds. Dean leans his hands on the table and hates. He festers into something detestable. Desperation bleeds into exhaustion, into darkness into oblivion. He wont claw back from this, doesn't _want_ to claw back from this.

But then the silence cracks with a noise so soft it could be snowfall. Dean looks up with empty eyes, and looks across the empty room, looks through peaceful mist to where Cas is faintly watching him.

He is a pinprick star in a universe of inky black. He is luminous eyes that fixate weakly. But he is _Cas_. The Cas they found crumpled and broken in the rain. The Cas that disappeared when his injuries became to much. The Cas that no matter what happens, how long it had been, what beaten state he's in, always comes back and always ends up irrevocably, fundamentally, and unquestionably Cas.

And Dean unravels back into himself.

'C's?' his voice is almost a whimper.

The angel stirs. He's almost lost under blankets, just dark hair and half vacant eyes, but Dean can see his head tip feebly as though he wants to raise it. A flash of pain, hard and sudden as lightning, then the head sinks heavily back onto the pillow.

Dean is already moving, his feet a warring drumbeat against the stillness and the silence. As he drops to his haunches by the bed a bandaged hand appears, half clawing, half gripping. There is hesitance there, as though Castiel isn't even sure what he's reaching for.

Dean hunches before him. Cas smells of antiseptic, of sterilisation and gauze and tape, strange synthetic smells that whisper worlds of hospitals and death. And all Dean can think of saying is; 'hey…'

Castiel meets his eyes. 'lo Dean,' he murmurs, and its everything Dean needs.

Relief floods cautiously over him. 'Hey,' he says again. 'Hey. You've been asleep twelve hours or so,' its important to tell him, important he knows, so he feels safe, feels secure.

Cas responds with silence, a wan stare filled with blankness.

'You okay?' Deans throat feels like sand. 'You in pain?'

A slight shifting is the only response.

Dean licks his lips, unsure what to say or even _how_ to say what few jarring words spring to mind. He hopes the angel is just sorting his thoughts out, letting his mind start to sluggishly work after long, bottomless slumber. Somewhere low in his stomach is clawing fear that Cas will disappear again, that he'll be left with the strange half-waking shell of the past few days. The one that screams in pain and shudders with unknown nightmares.

'The doctor lady left supplies if you need anything,' he ends up commenting.

'No morphine,' Cas croaks suddenly.

Dean leaps on the opening. 'No? Thats fine, Cas, no morphine.'

'No control,' Cas says carefully, as though its important. Dean frowns for a moment, struggling to comprehend the hundred words Cas is trying to cram into just three. But then Castiel blinks slowly, his fearful pupils bleeding into stormy oceans, and Dean understands.

'Got it, Cas,' he murmurs, 'we've got painkillers that won't knock you out, okay?' He knows how it feels, to have the world lurch and spin and your body feel disintegrated. 'We wont do that again.'

Castiel nods and the cocoon of blankets pull hesitantly away to reveal more of his face. The bare skin of his neck looks raw and paper thin. Wherever bruises do not linger, Cas' flesh stretches pale and clammy. Driven by impulse, Dean moves to touch. His fingers brush where jaw meets ear, skimming damp hair and curling gently around the back of his neck. Castiel is ice cold, Dean can feel him trembling.

'Dean?' Cas mumbles, the touch foreign to him, how many times has Dean ever reached out? 'What-?'

'You're freezing,' Dean states, like it wasn't stupidly obvious.

Castiel blinks. 'Don't feel…' he says slowly.

Dean slips his hand more firmly around Castiels neck, trying to ignore the clammy feel, the way Cas' breathing pattern quickens. The angels eyebrows pinch softly as he watches, trying carefully to not disrupt bruised skin. Dean wants to touch his forehead, press a warm hand against the cold; wants to offer gentle comfort in the same way you do for a sick child. Except the womans voice still echoes _stay away from his eye_.

'You don't feel cold?'

Cas slowly shakes his head. 'Feel churning,' he begins, and then suddenly lurches forward.

Deans hands shoot out. 'Woah!' He grips him tightly, one hand on shoulder to steady, the other pressed against his chest. Castiel had made no sound, made no movement before the jolt, but now he is unravelled into panting trembling quivers.

'You okay?'

'Okay,' Cas says to Deans knees. 'Okay,' the word whispers out between breathes and Dean tries to swallow frantic thoughts. He doesn't even know if Cas is saying _I'm okay_ or whether he's just deliriously muttering acceptance.

'Cas?' he tries, wishes it wasn't so goddamn painful to look the angel in the face, wishes he could see past the horrific bruising and bloodshot eye.

'I went to deep,' Castiel mutters. Then he says it again, and again, like his brain is stuck on repeat.

'To deep? Cas?' Dean shuffles his grip, tries to lift the angel so his drooping head will be level with his own. 'C'mon,' he mutters, 'please…'

And then he feels a light touch, something cold and gentle brushing against the skin on the back of his hand. He looks down to where his fingers are bunched against Castiels chest, supporting dead weight. And right there is Cas' own hand moving slowly, languidly, like its held up by string. It wavers and trembles with each gasp, but rests unsteadily over the spot where Dean holds.

While the rest of Cas' body is sickly cold, his chest burns a fevers heat. Dean blinks, scrunches his face in incomprehension, gently lowers Castiel back onto the bed. The angel goes compliantly, limp and heavy again, watching with wide, unfocused eyes as Dean moves his hand over the area. Unnatural, stifling warmth bleeds thickly out through the bandages.

'Whats that?' Dean says stupidly.

'Me,' Castiel mumbles.

Dean swallows thickly. 'You mean your, uh, mojo?'

'Grace.'

'I thought,' Dean mouths for a while and then figures he'll just say it, 'I thought you were human.' Cas refocuses his eyes at this, crinkles a little frown. Dean feels oddly foolish. 'You're, uh, not healing, like before…' he defends feebly.

'I can't heal,' the words are faint but certain, 'but I moved a coin with my mind,' he licks his dry lips. 'I feel pain and hunger, but I can also do this…'

The lights in the dim room suddenly spark into life, brightness so sharp it makes Dean hiss between his teeth. Its a flash, hard and sudden, quicker than a lightning strike. They spasm and flicker, one bulb explodes with a jingling pop.

And then the room is still and quiet once more.

'I'm not human,' Castiel decrees, voice slurred with heavy exhaustion.

Dean gapes, tries to understand what this means, gives up because its not important. _Cas_ is important. 'Still flying the angel flag then,' he agrees faintly.

No,' Castiel speaks like its the only thing he's sure of. 'No, I'm not… that…' his eyes drift closed.

'Not an angel? Dude, you just exploded a lamp,' Dean goes for logic.

Cas says nothing, and there emerges that strange closed off silence again, the same as when Sarah pushed gentle questions over him like rainfall. And Dean knows he's seen it before as well, when Cas was keeping secrets, before purgatory, before insanity, when it felt like a wall of ice had creaked its way relentlessly between them.

He wants to demand, to shout, to shake the angel physically or verbally, like he's done so many times before, _damn it I'm not loosing you again, I can't loose you again_. But then he looks at Cas, and really looks, and he sees a broken thing thats too hot and too cold, he sees a broken thing thats left too much blood trailing in its wake.

So instead Dean gets up, grabs another blanket, drops it over Cas where it settles with a thump of fabric on fabric. He pulls it over the angel and Cas opens his eyes to blink hopelessly up at him.

'Its okay,' Dean tries to believe his lies. He crouches again, squatting by the bed so they're face to face. 'Just.. tell us when you're in pain. Don't… don't lie around hurting 'kay?'

Another minute shift, Dean watches the tiny flickers; eyes turning inwards, fingers slowly curling around the edges of the blanket, breath that rises and falls in a gentle rasp.

'Can I talk to you?' Dean suddenly says.

Faint surprise circles the angels eyes. 'Of course,' he murmurs.

'Just…' the words burst forth with an unrelenting demand to be spoken, 'what happened, Cas?' All those months ago-' he has to stop before he chokes.

Cas dips his head, lets his eyes drop to stare unseeing at the floor. Its as though he is aware Dean is fiercely studying him, as though he's aware he's something that should be studied. Then he speaks carefully, so ridiculously carefully, like he's making it up or reciting half learned lines. Except Dean doesn't quite believe that, because Cas has pure galaxies burning in his eyes.

'I was… recalled by heaven. They corrected behav- they corrected,' Cas releases a small sigh and his fingers tighten. 'I was to be with them again, to hear their voices, and to walk amongst…' a movement that could almost be a twitch, 'then they- I…' theres far to heavy a pause before Castiel continues, as though the empty silence is censoring an explanation no one is privy to, 'and now I am here, and they have no more want of me.'

Dean digests it slowly, tries to find every hidden meaning he can in the words. In the end he still says gently, 'that… doesn't really explain much.'

Castiel blinks at him, face disheartened, but his mouth pulls tight and his eyes prick little movements that tell of blurry thoughts. Dean lowers himself further until he is sat, legs sprawled, leaning against the rickety bedside table as Cas tries again.

'I was nothing and then I was something,' his voice is so quiet now Dean has to strain to hear. 'And I,' the words come achingly slow, 'can't,' he shakes his head, 'the bit in-between.'

'Did they stick a giant metal spike into your brain?'

Dean gasps even as he says it. The question comes out sharp and harsh. Lightning splitting scars over a quiet sky. The silence pounds as Dean bites back his own traitorous tongue, but its to late now. For a second it looks as though Cas wont answer; he looks like he's about to fold shut. But then the broken angel snuffles in a little breath and offers Dean a regretful glance.

'No,' he says carefully.

Dean frowns.

'It was a drill.'

_Lobotomy… a drill forcefully inserted, piercing, probing, biting, gouging, gnawing into the brain… whisked back and forth, drilling into the frontal lobes…_

Burning acid forces its way up from Dean stomach, he swallows but it rises again, spreading sickly sweet like tar over his throat. _Drill, drilling, drill_ his mind traitorously chants at him, but the words are deep and old. Ancient heartbeats that scream of primordial wroth. They swarm an avalanche towards him, bury him unbreathing. Dean sits in howling silence, bunching and unbunching his fists.

Castiel is watching him, fearful apologies pressing through his expression. 'They were correcting behaviour,' he says faintly, it sounds like a statement he's been forced into believing. 'It's…' the fear waxes and wanes, and it dawns, Cas thinks Dean blames him. He thinks Dean might hate him.

The anger boils away. _No, Cas, no… _

'The other, after… Heaven is unaware of- It is unheard of.' For all the world Castiel is fighting to talk. His face is helplessly open, like he wants Dean to read it, to get lost in it, to understand it. He swallows and blinks his good eye, the other not quite co-ordinated enough to properly close.

'It's unheard of…' he says again.

Dean just hopelessly stares. Cas is quiet, solemn exhaustion, to overwhelmed to say more that his feeble mind can offer, but in his worry, his _need_ to fulfil, jumbled words still spill forth. They are hopeful honest offerings and Dean feels like he's being torn apart.

'Sor-'

'Don't you dare,' Deans voice returns. 'They drilled into your head, you don't apologies for that.'

For a few moments Castiel does nothing but stare at Dean. The silence lingers cloying thick. Only their shared breaths can be head, calm, measured huffs, in and out, in and out. Then Cas worries his mouth and lets out a tiny sigh that sticks fast in his throat. It hints at weary frustration, weary sorrow, weary pain. Its slight acceptance and timorous hope, but theres something more, something _giant_, that still lingers unsaid.

Dean's phone buzzes, a short text, _on my way back_. Its screen is piercing bright in the dimness of the room, and by the time Dean blinks the spots from his vision, Castiel is unconscious again.

.

* * *

_Oh man, I'm so so sorry for delays, it was honestly not my intent to leave it this long. I'm currently working intensively on a stage production, putting in 9-12 hours a day, 7 days a week (fleurgh) so my brain has turned to mush. __Therefore this chapter is also sorely unedited! My thoughts keep going OH GOD I USED TO MANY ELLIPSES MAYBE I SHOULD DELETE IT ALL AND START AGAIN._

_God, you guys are amazing for being so patient. Thank you thank you thank you._

_(thepoette did some amazing fanart for this story but I have absolutely no idea how to include it here. Links dont seem to work and I'm to brain dead to think harder about it. Anyone got any ideas?)_


	12. Such stuff as Dreams

**Such stuff as Dreams**

Castiel dreams.

He stands in a desert, sand frozen as glass. All around the horizon light flickers and bursts, a supernova that distorts the yawning gap of pale sand and bleached sky. They rip open on howling winds, mutilating the world into fractured turmoil.

Dead bodies surround around him.

This time there are four. Their faces waxy vacant, their suits inky black. The ashen imprints of their wings stretch out; deep elongated shadows that arc their way over the sands. They are strangely still in the biting winds.

He stares at them. And stares some more. They tell of nothing, only a task completed. There are always bodies. Where he walks they litter ungainly behind, mutated footprints that trail in his wake.

Its a hinderance that he will remember their faces, remember the fight, remember what they screamed. Its a fault. The memories of the lifeless angels will not fade. They remain because something deep inside, cold and mathematical, still believes its important not to forget.

A silent snap and Castiel stands in the clinical room. Its an intelligent decision to call him back. When he looks at the dead faces of angels to long, they all eventually become the same. The same man, over and over. A man they tell him to kill. So a man that he kills.

And kills. And kills.

Into his spine presses the chair, stiff and beige. Around his wrists wrap restrains, tight and grey. The ceiling is alive with a crawling mass, dripping black tentacles that writhe and squirm. Teeth and teeth and teeth smile down. He sees them a lot, but he knows they're not really there. Time to think of something else.

The chair is a familiarity. No, thats not the right word. He's not always in the chair, but it happens often enough to not be dismissed. Castiel blinks at the walls, there's no sensation in his fingers. After a pause he discovers its because he's gripping the armrests so tight that his hands are white. Strange.

Very faintly, cold and weak, something moves inside him. Its been slowly mutating for days, something akin to fear, except fear is to violent, to volatile, to uncontainable. This is deep and dark and distant. This is more like rumbling dread; but its so quiet and dull.

'You're becoming distressed again,' Naomi says. 'I wont allow the same outburst as last time. It's much more difficult when you don't work with us,' her chiding voice tells him he has done wrong. Yes, thats understandable. He's only ever in the chair when he's wrong.

She leans purposefully into his vision. 'You accept and allow this?'

Castiel knows this one, this is a test he always passes.

He says yes, and doesn't scream anymore when the drill pushes in.

Little pressure points appear over his skin. Pressure points that correspond to nothing in the room. They are cold and quick; tiny prickling sparks that he will realise later is rainfall. He will think it strange, because it never rains in dreams.

'You're getting more resilient,' says a voice that must be hers, 'your mind and body keep retaliating.' A finger taps his face, clacking on his cheekbone, 'you bruise now… were you aware?'

Castiel is not, and he says as so.

A lurch and shift, a blink and snap. He stands in a forest and all the trees are all crystal, bursting upwards as frozen pillars of glass. Around him lie the bodies, three and three. Their voices are dying echos which, no matter what is done, he will never forget. Ash rises from the scorched wings that spill over the ground. It flurries in the air, stings icy against his face, and Castiel breathes it in until it coats his lungs.

Is it ash or rain?

He stares at their faces until they all become the same.

Then he stands in the room and Naomi tells him who to kill.

Two bodies, three faces, more memories to carefully categorise. He still doesn't know the reasons. Maybe it was something he used to know; why it's important to not forget… Then he stands in the the room and Naomi tells him who to kill.

The rain becomes a downpour, its thrumming crescendos into deafening roars and Castiel kills and kills and- _goddamn it Cas- _air rushes freezing into his lungs as he jolts awake.

'-es awake.'  
'Cas?'

He flounders, something very wrong, something happening to him. His skin doesn't feel right, burning shivers, lava trapped in ice. His eyes sting when he pries them open, things try to crawl into them, he blindly blinks in panic. Why is it still raining?

'I got him, grab a towel.'

Voices sound strange, oddly metallic in their resonance like they may belong to both the past and the present. They're too clipped to be echoes but are echoed nonetheless. The air smells of soft minerals, lingers of a tasteless taste. Where is he?

A new pressure appears on his flesh, something warm and safe wrapping around shoulder and neck. Castiel's head tips forward uselessly onto his chest, his vision swims then clears.

''kay, you with us?'

Castiel forces his own breath to slow, forces reason into his mind, finds focus. He is slumped against a wall, tiled and cold, pale and reflective. He can see his bare feet resting limply on white plastic, shimmering water swirls around them. Rain is still falling, loud and cold and insistent. A shower. In a bathroom.

In front of him squats Dean, half wet, half worry, all Dean.

'Hey,' he says calmly, though his eyes are wide and deep. 'Welcome back.' Another pause and Castiel gathers himself. 'You went from freezing cold to burning up, whats happening, man?'

'Dean,' Castiel states.

Dean frowns.

'I'm churning,' Cas amends, he'll fail the test if he can't even answer a question anymore. No, thats not right… The shower is hissing and his body beginning to shiver under its onslaught. That explains the rain, his brain thinks sluggishly.

'Whats happening?' he asks.

'You been asleep eight hours or so,' Sam's voice echoes lightly off the shiny walls. Castiel lifts his eyes, squinting through the water, and finds Sam standing behind his brother, leaning against the wall with a bundle in his hands.

'We didn't realise your fever got so high,' he explains, 'had to cool you down quick.'

Dean sighs a deeper frown reaches out a hand to capture Castiels, which is clinging weakly to the slippery tiles on the wall. Cas watches, waiting for his brain to catch up, as Dean lowers his still bandaged hand to rest carefully by his side. The water spiralling down the drain is tinged red.

'Churning,' Dean echoes, 'you said that before…' he is calm and in control again. An assembly of strength and power has returned, but they're still bitten back under stony anger and despair. Castiel is glad though, it was unsettling when Dean was so lost before.

'S'okay,' he says decidedly, and Castiel realises he hasn't responded, 'we'll talk about it later.'

Under pretend rainfall, Castiel swallows and nods. He feels the water slink over his face, feels it thrumming on his scalp, its nice. The icy streams curve over his cheeks, trickle into the crack of his mouth. He licks his lips and tastes the droplets.

And then something pricks in the back of his brain, where the turgid light still sluggishly churns. New and sharp and far fresher than icy water. His chest gives a painful lurch. A word leaps up his throat.

'Demons,' he croaks. 'There are demons.'

Both brothers freeze. The whole room freezes.

'You sure?' Sam asks.  
'Where?' Dean demands.

A hopeless shake of his head that nearly sends him over. Dean grits his teeth, sudden sharpness, sudden frustration. 'Near,' Castiel manages, blinking water out of his eyes.

'Near as in outside our door, or near as in a five miles?'

Cas breathes in cold droplets and tries to ignore the fire in his chest. 'Five,' he says hopelessly. Then he frowns, mostly to himself, struggling to understand why his mind wont work how he asks it to.

'Five,' Dean repeats. He looks to Sam.

He stands, still holding the towel, a perfect mixture of prepared stillness and unprepared panic. But he sets his shoulders and sets his jaw, gives a small nod. 'Time to move out,' is all he says.

Everything moves in blurry lurches; a piercing squeak as the shower is yanked off, strength pulling him upwards, an unsteady walk back to the beds, the feel of sodden bandages smothering clammy over his tired skin, scents of age and must, of too many days spent in too small a room. They lower him down, Sam pressing the towel into his hands as Dean checks outside and pulls the curtain shut.

'Five figures across the street,' he reports.

'Demons?' Sam pushes the towel into Castiels chest, and Castiel wonders what he's supposed to do with it. Slowly and clumsily he pats at his wet skin, hands burning, eyes burning.

'Four creepy people and a creepy child all creepily staring at a motel? Yeah, I reckon they're demons.'

The sound of feet clunking, the feel of shifting air currents, then Sam's distant voice says, 'they're just stood there…'

A pause. Castiel continues to dab, light and timid, every movement sparking some kind of hurt. After an incomprehensable moment, he realises he's stopped thinking. Thats a bad thing, he tries to remind himself, and blinks as Sam and Deans voices rush back into his awareness.

'- just nuke 'em?'

'I guess… best plan we've got,' Sam turns to look at Cas. 'I'll get the gear, you get Cas?' and they both turn from the window and move towards him.

Sam brushes past, offers Castiel a tight smile as Dean stops before him. For a moment he does nothing but stare, as though Castiel is light and its the first time he's ever seen. It makes the angel harshly aware of his own body; to hot on the inside, to cold on the out, faintly shivering from both and from days of sickness. Any skin that's unmarred tingles with echoes of icy water. His pants and bandages drip haphazardly, thick and sodden.

How small he must look, bedraggled and broken.

'You look like someones walked over your grave,' Dean says, he begins unwrapping the uncomfortable clawing bandages from around Castiels chest.

Castiel blinks up at him, uncertain.

'Its an expression, Cas.'

'Oh.' Following Deans lead, he paws at the gauze that swarths his hands and wrists. 'It's a foolish one,' he adds after a moments thought.

Imperceptibly, Dean's face softens, 'now you're sounding more like yourself.'

'Good,' Castiel mumbles, trying to ignore his aching hands. And then things move to quickly for him to fully comprehend again.

Moments take control, flashing sensations; cold air rushing to meet freed skin, sharp tangs of antiseptic, electric pinpricks as injuries are rechecked, freshly wrapped, warm constricting bindings. Pants removed and replaced. Then a flare of swallowed panic when something looms towards his head, towards his face, towards his _eyes_. Muscles contract, breath stops… and then Deans face curls into an unhappy frown as he drops a t-shirt to the floor.

Under tarnished skin, shame burns.

More footfalls, a rustle, and with slow and then with careful movements Dean approaches again. A dark coloured shirt is clutched in his hands, long sleeves, thick and warm. Castiel watches uselessly as he is helped into it. One arm, then another, it hugs across his back. Dean avoids his face, wont even look at him anymore.

'Okay,' Sam reappears, hands wrapped tightly around glass cylinders. A strange swirling something sloshing within them, the ancient power makes Castiels chest buzz.

Dean finally looks up, grim faced. 'Let's vamoose.'

* * *

_I like to call this chapter 'Cas doesn't understand showers or towels.'_

_For those who were interested in the amazing fanpic, you can find it here: thepoette. tumblr (.com)/image/45256808532 (just remove the spaces & brackets - thanks again for it! I loves.)_

_I'm still pulling 12 hour days at the mo, so sorry for delays and sorry again that this chapter is unedited! All your reviews and follows and amazingly kind words are definitely the highlight of a stressful time. Thanks so much :D and Happy Easter if you celebrate it!_

_**ETA:**__ I've altered the previous chapter slightly, and revealed one of the mysterious figures at the beginning to be Naomi. In my head it was always her, I can't remember my reasons for keeping her identity anonymous. The other figure is still unknown though._


	13. Demons

**Demons**

It's purposeful, the slow walk to where the impala crouches. Its deliberate, its calculated. _We know you're there and we know you're watching us. _The sun beats down. The asphalt creaks. The figures across the street do not move. _If you know us, you'll know we're dangerous._ Heavy, careful footsteps, one after another in slow, rhythmic agony. _Just you try it_.

Sam blinks sweat out of his eyes, breathes stifling air. His hands wrap subconsciously tighter around Castiels arm, though the angel seems to be mostly supporting his own weight. Dean isn't even touching him anymore, walking stiffly ahead, eyes fixated on the figures across the road.

'Damn it,' Sams mutter turns into a half-grunt as Cas stumbles.

He rights himself without missing a beat, only a shaken breath hinting deeper hurt. The angel feels strange under cotton, looks to small without a trench coat to swarth him. Sams fingers graze over bandages under his shirt, over the lumpy stitches that hold his back together.

Half heartedly Sam says, 'you okay?'

And Castiel blinks at the figures across the street, the figures who still haven't moved. His eyes hold strange stillness, sunken luminescence amongst dark discolouration. But there is no fear. Only something much deeper, and much more primal.

'I can't fight them,' Cas says carefully, gaze still fixated.

'You don't need to,' Sam firmly answers.

And he wonders how Castiel does it, how he can even exist in this strange, half-state, where sometimes he is so very Castiel and other times he is nothing they have ever seen before. Not god or Leviathan or someone hiding terrified behind insanity, just something incomprehensible now hopeless and lost. He sees Cas frown, as though the angel can hear the thoughts… perhaps he can.

The pressing security of the impala looms next to them. As they fumble with doors, Cas leans against its warm skin, one shoulder pressed to the car. Sam flickers his eyes to Dean, who standing stock still. Dean, who is burning with the power of the hunt, who is watching the figures across the street like an animal.

They watch calmly back, and still do not move.

Cas says, 'they're old,' and then his eyes open larger. Nothing else moves, the tension ekes to painful, even the wind has fallen still. But Cas' eyes are blazing, wide in trepidation, and staring right at Sam. Staring right _past_ Sam.

To where five figures are standing mere feet away.

And for a moment no one dares move.

Five figures, ten inky eyes. Man, man, woman, man, child. Except they're not that at all. They're twisted husks of smoke, clawing and suffocating in their stolen fragile bodies. They are ash and brimstone and hunger and malevolence.

'One step closer and you're dead,' Dean growls.

'Now, now, Winchester,' one purrs silky.

Its a though a spell is broken; they relax, exchange looks, force plastic smiles onto stolen faces. The first demon holds up its hands in mock surrender. 'We don't want any trouble.'

'Then leave,' Sam jerks his head at the road, uses the movement to take a step closer to Cas. 'Walk away-'

'-and no one gets hurt?' the demon grins. 'Sure thing, Winchester. We're only here to ogle anyway.'

The demon wearing the child gives a dissatisfactory sniff. 'All the way from Ohio for this? Not very impressive,' a few murmurs of agreement. 'Pathetic, really.'

'Don't spoil it,' another chides, then suddenly its black eyes snap to Castiel. 'You're quite the celebrity in certain circles, we just wanted to see you for ourselves.'

Something unnatural slides down Sams spine, settles cloyingly in the pits of his stomach. The angel is glaring fury, bruises deepening around his eyes. Sam hates those bruises, hates the story they tell. Dean seems frozen too, hand half raised with the demon bomb still tightly clutched.

'Mmmnn, they were right,' a female rakes her eyes over Castiel, black and flat and hungry, 'he's a pretty one.'

'All knotted up now, though.'

'Not healing, angel?'

'Little blackbird,' the child murmurs.

Cas moves the exact same time as Sam, a strange panicked jolt. The demons titter, and all Sam feels is a horrible uncontrollable _something_ whirling up inside him. He balls a fist, takes a step. But suddenly Cas' fingers are weakly gripping him.

'Sam,' his voice is strained and low.

Sam grits his teeth.

'_Sam_,' Cas says again, and theres an undercurrent to it. Sam blinks, scans the demons rapidly, Cas is warning him of something. Theres a bigger threat, theres danger. One of the figures at the back stands silent, stands commanding, stands _pulsing_ with energy. It's the only one not looking at them.

It's the only one looking at Dean.

Dean, who's hand is imperceptibly shaking, but not with fear. Dean, who hasn't spoken for too long a time. Dean, who_ hasn't moved_ since the demons came close.

'You fucker,' Sam spits.

'Ouch, Sam,' the female mocks hurt. 'Honestly, we're just taking precautions. We all know he's the one with the temper, right?' Dean makes a strangled grunt. 'Besides,' she continues, 'I bet you don't want to waste that deadly looking ball of…' her eyes flip to the bomb, '…nastiness. We're not a threat,' she smiles coldly. 'Promise.'

'Release him,' Castiel growls.

A tall male grins widely. 'Hey! Don't ruffle your feathers at us.'

'Whats left of them!'

They dissolve into hideous shrieks. Faces splitting open but eyes never once leaving them. Sam shifts his weight, glowers them down, convinces himself that Cas is doing the same, because he can't bare to think what the angels face might be doing otherwise.

'Don't worry,' a demon eventually says, 'we know he's off limits.'

'What?'

'We're not allowed to touch,' it waves his hand lazily, 'some _very_ powerful so-and-so's decreed it.'

Sam works his throat. 'Who?'

He's given nothing but a grin in response.

'Hands off the angel,' another drawls, the others stir with identical grins, 'but we got no orders on you, Sam Winchester.'

'Traitorous prince.'

'Thats right, Winchester.'

'Plenty of demons want your head.'

'Want you dead, Sam Winchester.'

Beside him, Cas stirs, and Sam realises he can taste electricity in the air. There is something half-controlled about the angels little shudders, like he's drawing on energy that he doesn't have to spare. Very carefully and very slowly he raises a hand.

'Leave,' he commands, and, god, he can still be terrifying when he wants to.

The demons shriek with laughter again.

'Ohh, the bird still has a voice!'

'Back off,' Sam feels his voice curl into a snarl. Cas is pressing hot and unsteady into him, but a quick glance shows the angel is as still as marble; that terrifying mixture of intensity and serenity which echoes of old times.

'You're cowering in your wolf-skin, sheep,' Cas retorts, 'and your flock is thin,' a ripple runs through the demons, Sam can feel the hairs prick on the back of his neck. 'You should run back to your shepherd.'

This brings forth a hiss. Empty grins twist into grotesque snarls, eyes flicker to darkness.

'_Don't speak of him_.'

Theres no pleasure left in their words anymore.

'You've met him, haven't you?'

'We've heard all sorts of stories, _angel_.'

'About the things you did.'

'_Blackbird_.'

'The things they'd make you scream.'

A strange burst of giggles.

'Did it _hurt_ when they _sliced_ into you?!'

Castiels eyes flash thunder. And an eternity is contorted into a heartbeat. There's a second. A snap. A lunge and a strike. Sam moves without thinking, meets an advancing demon and slams his fist like a hammer into its face. Thats all he can do, all he has time to do, before Castiel wrenches his hand with a violent twist and something _flares_.

Sam tastes metal, tastes neon and sharp light.

'Cas!'

The demons let out a hallowing shriek.

Invisible chains snap, Dean stumbles forward. _Down, get down!_ He raises his hand, arching it over his head, _now, Dean, now! _The bomb is slammed forcefully into the ground.

Then there is only rushing heat, a gasp of air, and sudden stillness.

* * *

With a forceful growl the impala claws its way back onto the road. Destination: Ohio. The day is peaking, warm and humid, it powers forward, wind biting at its flank.

Dean grips the wheel and mutters, 'christ,' under his breath. Some switch has flipped in his brain, one he doesn't quite understand. Deep anger has moulded to frustration, the demon attack a final straw now snapped. Its the same twisted uselessness that burned when Cas first disappeared. That hopeless, helpless… they were so _small_.

Except now Cas is back. He's back and half broken, and the more they find out from him the less they seem to know; angels and demons and a whole mess of something that he just refuses to talk about.

Forty miles down the road Dean suddenly speaks. 'Wanna explain any of that?'

Sam glances at Cas, slumped quietly in the backseat. He looks tired and wan and even paler than before, whatever roaring power now subsided to a sluggish lull. The only movement he controls are uncoordinated eyes and unsteady breath. Sam has no idea what he did, and no idea _how_ he did it, but he's glad he did.

'What happened?' Dean asks again.

As though on a delay, Cas raises his head, the rest of him stays limply sprawled. 'Demons of old,' he finally says. His voice is quiet and worn. 'I don't know them, but I recognised their power. They serve a demon named Solas, a knight of Hell.'

Sam blinks, 'you mean like Abbadon?'

'You've met Abbadon?'

'Yeah, we ganked her,' Dean squares his shoulders.

The angels face goes still for a moment, his stare unblinking, and then it softens and his eyes slink away. Its a look thats easy to read, a look thats so very Castiel. It suggests he's faintly impressed but also completely unsurprised, as if he's saying _of course you did, you're the Winchesters_.

'So, Solas? You know him?' Sam prompts.

'Yes.' There is a pause thats too heavy to be insignificant before Cas says, 'we've technically met,' his next words are careful. 'He… sang to me.'

'He _sang_ to you?'

'Yes,' his eyes slink away, 'a song about a blackbird.'

They remember the demons taunting voices, _little blackbird_, they'd said softly, picking the angel apart with their hungry eyes. And it had hurt Cas, that much was clear. The brothers are guiltlessly glad they're dead.

'He and his followers are fiercely loyal to Hell,' the angel continues. 'They're- I don't know why they've chosen now to emerge.'

Deans eyes flick to the mirror and back. 'You sure about that?' he murmurs too quietly. He catches Castiel looking strangely at him, and suddenly he knows this is happening.

'Okay, fine,' Dean counters, and Sam wonders where the hell this suddenly came from. 'I was just wondering, cause, y'know, you've had angels messing with your head for months and then these demons turn up wanting to see you. Whole thing reeks to be honest.'

The weariness in Castiels face disappears, its replaced with unease. 'Heaven wants nothing to do with me, I am…' he falters, 'because of what was done.'

'You said they discarded you,' Sam recites. Cas spares him a nod, but for whatever reason, Dean has decided that now is talking time. Or, more accurate for Dean, confrontation time.

'So, level with me here. How come they just let you go? The big halo club.' Castiel says nothing. 'Y'know,' Dean continues, 'after months of whatever they've been doing, or, or whatever- they just,' he waves a vague gesture, 'threw you out?'

Castiel opens and closes his mouth. 'I…' his fingers curl in on themselves. 'They aren't looking, Dean. Heaven has no want of me.'

Dean bites the inside of his mouth and tries again. 'They zapped you up there, stuck a drill into your skull,' he swallows, 'did their freaky mind games or whatever and then… adios?'

Castiel says nothing.

'C'mon Cas!' Dean snaps.

Sam rubs his face, 'its just it, uh, doesn't sound like angel behaviour,' he tries to catch Deans eye, tries to give a sharp warning, _don't get wound up_, _calm_, but his brother isn't looking.

'What do you want me to say?' Cas tries to shift, but his body doesn't seem to be responding.

_Everything, _Dean thinks manically. _You're not telling us squat and you wont explain things properly, you're freaking me out and I don't even know how to ask the questions I want to ask. Whats wrong? Just.. please. What the hell are we supposed to do?_

'We don't get why they let you _go_, man,' he has to force himself to stay calm.

Sam nods unhappily, reaches out for the feather on the dashboard. 'Its just… from what we know of angels, they wouldn't do that,' he hints.

Another stifling silence.

'Why didn't they just kill you?!' Dean snaps.

Castiels eyes flash indignant. 'They don't _want_ me.'

'Right, so they just _let you go_?' Dean doesn't even try to hide the sarcasm.

'Is that so hard to believe?'

'That they had you prisoner for months, and then held the door for you on your way out?' Dean rolls his eyes. 'Yes!' he snaps.

Castiel sighs and distantly raises his torn hands to rub raw fingers over his forehead. Its the first time Dean has seen him acknowledge himself, like he is there and real. Little insistences burrow into Dean's brain, _look how tired he is, look how lost and broken he is, you stole him and you snapped him. Look at what you've done._

Dean shakes them away and tries to understand the strange brimming hollowness that encompasses Castiel. He's living but not alive, he wont talk but he talks. Dean inwardly curses, because they've danced this dance before. He knows the steps far to well, lies and petty twisting of truths, they're the heartbeat of his godforsaken life.

'What aren't you saying?' he can't help but bite out. 'C'mon, Cas. You're not telling us everything.'

'No,' Cas agrees quietly.

'Well then tell us!'

He feels the angel shift behind him, feels Sams unhappy vibes as he twirls that stupid battered feather. _Sure Sam, sit on your silent moral high ground why don't you? But you want to know as much as me, you're not stopping me, you know we need to know this._

Very slowly Castiel begins, 'I told you…'

'Bullcrap,' Dean snaps and he's just _so tired_. He takes a breath. And then another. 'Okay, bottom line, Cas, if demons are gunna come chasing you down then we need to know whats happening. Cause if they want you, you can bet like Hell the angels will too. We need to know what we're dealing with. So how bout giving us the truth this time?'

And then the bottom drops out of everything, because Cas says far to quietly, 'I haven't lied.'

And the silence in the car is more deafening that any words.

'I wont... lie again. I learned my lesson.'

And Castiels eyes drop, and he is nothing, and Dean breaks in two.

* * *

_Wow I abuse italics even more than usual in this chap!_

_The song Cas refers to is 'Blackbird' by the Beatles._

_I hope the confrontation doesn't seem to out of place in terms of pacing/characters (please let me know if it does!)... I'm still ridiculously busy so sorry sorry sorry if this is a bit stringy in places :P But Solas, ey? Some fun things to come with that happy-chappy._

_Gah, thank you guys so so much for all your reviews! They honestly brighten my whole week._


	14. The Feather

**The Feather**

While the impala purrs and pants, inside its walls scream silence. Dean ignores it for favour of the road, Sam accepts it as inevitable and unavoidable. Castiel counts it, because its all his brain will allow him to do. Its static grey and beige, its bland and tasteless, a texture of woollen fuzziness, and a weight of a thousand leagues.

Two hours of solid silence and Dean announces they're driving through the night.

Sam mumbles about fuel, about food, and is rewarded with a scathing look, _I know what I'm doing_. So he sighs and teases the window open. The wind ripples chills across his face, and he watches as the giant feather trembles in the breeze. Behind him Castiel says nothing, and goes unnoticed.

Five and a half hours of solid silence and Dean mutters about a pit stop.

Sam jolts awake, opens his dry mouth to suggest a motel, but shuts it before Dean can cut him with angry retorts. The window is now glued closed, a ward against the dust of the road, which whirs pale and sickly in the fading light. Dean rolls his eyes, Sam drifts back to sleep, Castiel says nothing and goes unnoticed.

Nine hours of solid silence and the impala mewls malcontent.

Its enough for Dean to snap himself from his thoughts, which are whirling blue and red, and enough to rouse Sam from his lightheaded slumber, where he dreams of smoke and chains. A gear is crunched, a signal snapped, and the impala slows from run to prowl. Castiel sluggishly rolls his head towards the door.

Night has fallen, still and empty. The diner is small and ordinary, its parking lot swathed in sharp neon light, burning painfully bright in the new-formed darkness. Dean pulls himself out the moment the engine has lulled, doesn't bother giving Sam a look, but strides around the car and yanks open the back door.

He's met with the quiet eyes of Castiel.

Biting back unfathomable words, Dean breaks eye contact, rubs his face, reforms it again. Cas doesn't move, hasn't moved since they slung him in; his body hangs in a limp slump, hands uselessly by his sides. The white of his bandages scream obvious in the dusk, the stinging smell of antiseptic too sharp against the tepid night. His chest slowly rises and falls, faded eyes watch with distant caution.

Dean snaps, 'hungry?' and tries to ignore the break in his voice.

The response comes slowly, '… no.'

'You should eat.'

Cas lowers his gaze. 'I don't need to eat,' he says to his fingers.

'Huh,' Dean thins his mouth. 'Thought you felt hunger and all that now.'

'I did…' He curls his fingers slowly, open, closed. '…I don't.'

'All that angelic stuff kicking back in? You'll be back on your feet and flying off in no time.'

Castiel says nothing.

Sam twists in his seat to look back at them. To a broken angel and an angry man. He catches his brothers eye and tries to say everything with a look. _He's tired, man. He's hurting. He's not ready to talk about it, we just need to give him time_._ Give him more time_. Deans jaw is already clenched and the air is already singing with the unspoken; an emotional door is tentatively open, but instead wrenching it wide and alighting, Dean simply slams it shut.

'Okay. Well, I'm getting a burger, if you're not eating you should probably stay here cos, no offence, you look like a walking punching bag.'

And then he straightens up and walks away.

They watch him leave and, strangely, Sam finds he doesn't feel anything much. He mutters a quiet, 'ass,' but more for Cas' comfort than his own. There should be something more, even amongst the bone-tiredness, but he feels nothing, and he doesn't understand why. Its as if Dean has taken it all, in his rage and his despair. Dean is a sun blazing, and all Sam has done is slowly turn to stone.

But he flicks his attention to Cas, to his strange eternal sadness, and sure enough begins to feel again the heavy hopelessness pooling again, like liquid lead into his stomach.

'How are you doing?' he asks.

Cas tears his eyes away and refocuses on Sam. Almost _clings_ to Sam, like he is the only anchor in an endless sea. 'Better.' It shouldn't sound so unbelievable.

'You kicked some ass back there, whatever it was you did.'

Cas give a momentary squint, and then presses his mouth into a fractional smile. Its small and sad and doesn't quiet reach his eyes. 'You should go with Dean,' he reassures. 'I'll wait here.'

Sam nods. 'Maybe you could get some rest,' it feels odd to suggest, but he plunges on anyway. 'There are blankets in the back if you want…?'

'I can't sleep,' Cas says, his voice weary.

'Like… nightmares…?'

'No, I…' he frowns, as though he's only just realised thats what he's been having. 'I don't need sleep, Sam.'

Sam says all to quickly, 'right, right,' forces lightness to his words, 'angels and sleep don't mix, huh?'

Cas lets his eyes slip away, 'I suppose,' he answers unconvincingly.

And Sam can understand Dean in a heartbeat, because what is there left of the angel to give? Running into a wall is one thing, it can be hit and broken and struggled against. This… this is a chasm, a great yawning pit of empty. And Castiel is lost into it, giving nothing and hiding everything and yet somehow still _trying_ to communicate and it _makes no sense_.

Inside his hand the feather crumples. His fist curls tight, squashing one half into oblivion. It should make him feel something, why doesn't he feel anything? Sam stares. Castiel watches him. The feather flashes almost translucent. Words reverberate, those small, select, important words.

_They discarded me  
__They were finished  
__They don't want me_

Sam thinks of abandonment, thinks of outliving usefulness, and knows deep down he can't really understand because he's never truly lived it. But Sam is Sam and cradles the warmth of humanity in his heart, so he feels the desolation nonetheless. Not his, he is still stone, but perhaps a spark of what Cas might feel. It makes him think of a junkyard, of a flat battery, of a busted lightbulb. He's not sure why he says it, but suddenly it seems the most important thing in the world.

'You're not a object, Cas.'

Castiel says nothing.

The feather quivers under strain and tension. It shudders as though it had life of its own, a will, a desire, an _anger_. And suddenly Sam realises what he's doing, what he's _breaking_. A heartbeat and then he balks; his hand snaps open, guilt churns from his stomach to his throat.

'Sorry,' he says thickly. 'Uh...'

Cas watches him carefully, quiet and patient. Sam swallows and holds out the feather, now disheveled and bent, still clutched in his clammy fingers.

'Do you want it? I mean…' he lowers his hand, then immediately raises it again. 'It's yours, right? They, uh, left it for us, but...' He watches with trepidation as Cas transfers attention from face to hand. 'It's from you, like your wings- do you want it back? Its yours,' he continues stupidly, 'right?'

'Yes, its mine.'

Like drudging up from depths, Cas drags himself forward. He raises a leaden arm and gently takes the feather. It arcs before him, thick and fragile and stiff and crumpled; beyond its length Sam can see tender blue eyes blaze. Cas holds it carefully, like its precious. But, and acid begins to swirl, it looks _wrong_. Torn fingers twirl it, slowly, jarringly, and it looks so ungraceful in his hands, so clumsily and uncontrolled. So ugly. Because its not a part of him any more. It was ripped away, and sullied, and snapped and now its _dead_. Its a dead thing. And Sam breaks a little more. Because if it was still a part of him it would be beautiful…

And Sam wishes he could see that, not this pathetic thing.

Castiel takes a small breath and runs his fingers up the feathers length, an artist surveying a ruined portrait. The barbs slip through like silk, clumping and splitting, but Cas carefully smooths them out until even the stains seem less than before. Sam wonders whether to ask about the blood, though when he looks up Cas is watching the feather with strange detached longing.

'I don't know why they wasted energy making it tangible,' he says at last.

'It was a warning,' Sam chews the inside of his mouth, 'they left it as a warning,' bitterness slowly creeps. 'We were trying to save you, they wanted us to back off…'

The feather slowly lowers. 'That sounds like you.'

'Yeah, for all it was worth,' Sam mutters.

'It was,' comes the steady reply.

And when Sam next looks, Castiel is holding the feather out to him. Amongst the heavy purples and sickly greens his eyes pierce out all the sharper. His hands a firm and definitive. The feather is perfectly still, and perfectly formed.

'Perhaps you should keep it,' the angel says. 'I think it might mean more to you than to me.'

_He knows_, Sam realises, _he knows you hold it when you pray, that you hold it when you're tired, when you're stressed, when you need it. _That… strange primordial peace of holding onto something, that belief you hold a connection to the world, or to something so much greater than himself. It's the only thing that maybe makes him feel more than nothing. Cas doesn't want him to loose that.

'Thanks,' he says, voice slipping into hoarseness.

A little nod, a little flash of something. Its not strong enough to be joy or pleasure, but a whispered relief that he's understood. And then his head flops slowly back against the seat, and his eyes begin to drift away.

'You know you can talk to us, right?' its something else that seems so important to say. 'I mean, you don't have to, its okay. But, if you want to.'

In days to come, Sam will understand. Even as the hours creep past he will begin to realise: that the strange sharp scintilla burning behind Castiel's eyes, ungraspable, is disappointment. But for now he is only met with silence and an unfathomable look.

'Are you,' he sighs through his nose, chewing over his words. 'You're not going to disappear on us, are you?'

Cas raises his head off the seat. Like water slowly pooling, sad guilt now fills his eyes. 'No,' he reassures softly, 'I'll stay.'

It makes Sams guts shrivel, he hadn't meant it as an accusation. 'Okay,' he affirms quickly, 'we'll… be back soon.' He pulls himself out of the car, stiff and numb, and just before he cranks the door closed the words leap from him.

'We'll fix this.'

* * *

Castiel sits in impala and clicks the indicators on and off.

He does it because its something he can do, its a certainty, its a fact. Whatever broken and withered impulse that still lingers inside his head, he is strong enough to push it forward. He pushed it into the demons, a split-second of a lightning knife. And he pushed it into the feather, a heartbeat of warmth and softness. It is his, he recognises it, but it feels unconnected to him. A lost found thing, a known unknown, like the strange space that stretches between sleeping and waking.

Dull and aching pain thrums over him, though muddied and suppressed under heavy-handed exhaustion. The exhaustion is the worst, a cold and clawing nausea, mindless and smothering. _It shouldn't be so hard to move_, it shouldn't be so hard to simply _breathe_. He swallows and feels the protest of tender skin around his throat.

What had Sam said? _Well fix this_. Castiel blinks away blurring patterns from his eyes. He hadn't considered how broken things could be, but… now that he thought harder about it, he hadn't thought anything much. Its easier when Castiel ignored Castiel. Sometimes it was still to hard to think about things, or, at least, the right things, he seemed to be good at thinking the wrong ones.

He reaches out again with fractured self and pushes feebly. The silence is filled with small ticks, little clicks of indicators flicking on and off. And on and off.

Inside his head an aching pulse begins to gnaw.

Minutes tick by. He tries to stop thinking, tries to stop burning, clicks the indicators on and off and on and off. Minutes tick by and the pain behind his eyes continues to grow.

Then there is the whoosh of squashed air escaping, and the impala doors are pulled open. Dean and Sam clamber inside, bringing in new smells of food and night. Castiel blinks, pulls back into himself, but not before Dean holds his hands an inch or two above the wheel and frowns.

'Whats-?' he cranes around. 'Thats you right? With the indicators. What are you doing?'

'Giving myself a headache.'

'Well don't.'

Another door slammed shut. A purr widens to a growl and the impala leaps forward again. As the miles eat away, Castiel battles the dysphoria that clamours under his skin. Half snatches of conversation are heard from the front, the brothers voices barely rising over the engines rumble. Sam is calling his state 'being in flux', Dean quips a Delorian reference and then argues, 'fluxing between what and what? Human and angel? He never stops being an angel, its not flux.'

Castiel's eyes drift hazily down and he realises he still doesn't have shoes.

Sam counters, 'he's in and out, Dean, he's half with us, hes in flux.' and they argue the problem whist never thinking of how to fix it. Castiel has a better word, but he finds he can't bring himself to say it. It echoes round his head, loud and angry and never fading away. He wishes he could explain in words that carry meaning and weight, wishes it could be simple and everyone would understand.

He tries to focus on what he knows, but thats just Sam and Dean. Dean and Sam and their unhappiness. They never sounded this unhappy when they were just prayers in his head. And its _him_. They're unhappy at him. He affixes himself the title of _burden_ and considers how perhaps he shouldn't have tried so hard to find them.

Cold numbness sets in.

They drive into dawn, and drive through the morning. They race the sun as it arcs over a painted sky, and drive until it sets. They drive though dusk and drive into darkness. The impala roars on, oblivious to another day being eaten away.

'-almost two days straight, we _need to stop_.'

'We have stopped, look: Car. Road. Stopped.'

'I mean a motel, with beds and a shower. We can't sleep roadside with Cas the way he is.'

'So we won't.'

'What-'

'Sam, whatever those demons wanted, Solas and his cronies or whatever, we need to kick it before it becomes any bigger. We sort it now, its done and dusted.'

'Becomes any bigger? Any bigger than what? We don't know whats happening! We don't even know where they are! We iced the demons remember?'

Minutely, Castiel shifts. His shoulders ache, his back throbs into a symphony of low bass and high sparking jolts. There is a pounding in his chest, screaming knives that sing the antithesis of a heartbeat. It fissures along his spine, pooling vicious in the back of his skull. The swollen skin around his eye pushes relentless angry pressure.

'Yeah, and they followed a knight of Hell. You heard them talking, "certain circles"? Theres gunna be more than five of them. A ten second glance at a newspaper and we both know somethings up. People going missing. Demons. End of.'

'But we don't _know_ anything. You're just being bone-headed. Lets- Lets take the night and start looking into it tomorrow.'

'You do what you want, Sam, I'm gunna kill me some demons.'

'Sure. Okay, yeah. You don't even know where they are.'

'Don't need to, we've got a walking radar,' Dean swivels in his seat. 'Cas, where the demons at?'

* * *

The church is quaint and ordinary. It is new and un-intimidating, not very big and not very impressive. Its unobtrusive little existence, on the side of a hill just outside the city, goes by almost unnoticed and most definitely uncared about.

When Dean and Sam burst through its doors, their final demon bomb alighting the walls in a wave of fired smoke, the quaint and ordinary church does no more than echo with hysteric laugher.

When Sam and Dean are smashed into its walls and left to hang like grotesque butterflies pinned, the quaint and ordinary church becomes not a battlefield but a prison.

When Dean and Sam struggle pitifully, and are rewarded with forceful pain, the quaint and ordinary church watches the demons laugh at humanity in all its pathetic weakness.

_He'll be back soon_, they howl.

When the doors slam forcefully shut, sealing Sam and Dean inside, the quaint and ordinary church blends back into the quiet night. And all around the sky, black smoke twists as stars begin to fall.

* * *

_Oh hey! Remember me?_

_Many apologies for the delay - for those who don't know, I've been in Tokyo the past two weeks performing the first ever stage adaptation of Studio Ghibli's 'Princess Mononoke'. Its been amazing and wonderful and I was the butt of a giant wolf god (puppetry for the win!)._

_So here, have an emotionally crippling__ chapter to make up for it. Thanks for waiting, thanks for being so patient. Oh Cas, what is going on in your brain? I'm so goddamn excited for the next chapter because ACTION and things._

_And thanks, as always, for all your kind words and comments!_


	15. Anger

**Anger**

The impala is cold and empty.

At the bottom of a hill it sits, garish against the soft trees in the background. It's still and silent, and nothing but metal and fabric and gears and pistons. For the first time in a long time it's lifeless, and Castiel is lifeless inside.

The faint lights from the city far away shine weakly through the darkness, bouncing feebly off the black paintwork, and picking out faintly the dim space inside. With deadened eyes its all that Castiel can make out, the rest of the world being swallowed by the night, but then he isn't really looking anyway.

If he tried harder, he would be able to discern the echoes; _Wait here. _A door slamming shut. A far to heavy clunk of a lock. _We're just gunna leave him? _Fading footsteps. _What else are we supposed to do? _Voices eaten away by the wind.

But Castiel remains, too lost in himself to even register the nearby presence of corrupted smoke. Until somewhere far above him, quiet and unassuming, a star begins to fall. The night sky alights, trees and ground silhouetted in bright whiteness, the smell of ozone lingers, and everything shifts into strange distant free fall.

For the first time since he hit the ground, Castiel finally looks up.

And from nothing flares everything.

The star falls and Castiel watches its trail, the light of its fire now shining in his eyes. And it sort of makes sense in a distant way; emotions _would_ just be the last thing to come properly back to him. After all, they were the first to be taken. He had snatches before, fast and fleeting in an endless struggle, but this has been growing since he awoke, a twisting sickness in his stomach that has nothing to do with the physical. And god, he's angry. So _fucking_ angry.

_No, no, no, you can't think these things._

Deep inside his mind electric ticks. A clash between two forces. One screams obedience and drills pain when he falters, the other flares free will; faint mutilated light still slowly churning. They crash against each other, fierce lightning shattering and spiking. Pressure builds, painful, _uncontainable_.

A swallowed groan escapes him. His head pulses as he pushes outwards, desperate to have it gone. Lights stutter. The heavy lock of the car snaps open with a clunk. A creaking door is flung wide.

He shouldn't feel these things, they're _wrong_, you don't feel, not supposed to, and this will only lead to… to… Castiel screws his eyes shut. Stop. Anger and rage and hurt and despair, these do not belong to him. Wait, are these even his words? Is it even his own voice in his head anymore?

As though guided by unknown forces, he pulls himself unsteadily out of the car. _Still unsteady, still weak_, he silences the little voice before it can complete its taunt, but he knows what it was going to say. _Still useless_. And it burns right the way through him.

Under the trail of the star he begins to walk. The star...  
... The church looms in the darkness.

In his mind he screams: _don't feel_, though he thinks they're forced thoughts,_ don't fight, they will come again and split molten fire through you._ _It will HURT_. But its there and its burning and he's so _angry_, why should this be wrong? Because he's not angry at himself, or at others, or at the world. He's angry _for_ them. For this heartbreak they live in, for the wrongdoings and the suffering. For humanity and the angels and all the things in-between. And maybe, somewhere small and lost and where he wont ever admit, he is furious for himself. Because he deserves it all, yes, but not _against his will_.

The church door appears before him, thick and large; aged wood stained with time and the press of a thousand hopeful hands. It used to be sanctity, now it reeks of sulphur. Now is reeks of defilement and the anger inside him screams.

Castiel explodes through, the wrath of ages thundering behind him -

_One heartbeat to take it all in; four bodies on the floor, four demons in the pews, Dean and Sam pinned on the wall._

- and then he ignites.

The air is filled with screams. Calls of his own name and curses of spite. Almost immediately two demons spring towards him. One flings a heavy fits that snaps through the air, Castiel spins, the strike misses, he feels its passage glancing gently near his face. His own fist lashes out. Once. Twice. The demon hits the floor like an avalanche.

_One heartbeat to feel the pain; little sharp waves from the split flesh of his hands._

The second demon hisses, advances, and Castiel feels a whine of white hotness building in retaliation. Its stolen body takes two deliberate steps, weighted, muscles taught. Without even a blink Castiel pushes out with everything he has, his legs bunch, his body springs forward. There is no elegance to his moves, he is desperation and failing strength. The whine is building. His shoulder slams into the demons legs and they both go over, cracking fiercely onto the floor. The demon screams. Castiel slams his hand onto its head.

And _pushes._

Theres no explosion of light, no demonic eyes bursting into beacons of heavens intent. Cas knows he isn't strong enough for that, not nearly an angel enough for that. But the tainted swirling mass inside him still coils and flares, so he forces a shivering spark into the demons flesh like poison. It gasps. It buckles. Castiel reels away, mind screaming.

_One heartbeat to feel the ache; another fragment of himself deliriously eaten away._

A third attacks; fire and stone, and Castiel bites back; wind and lightning in a body limp and failing. Behind him he can sense the infected demon curl onto hands and knees; bubbling, retching gasps spew forth from its mouth as waves of black smoke are vomited out.

A man is left shivering and crying in the cold air.

Castiel sets his jaw, snatches a breath. He's not much, but perhaps he's enough. He moves forward again all focus on those inky eyes that shine from bottomless depths. The demon lands a hit, sharp into Castiels temple. The church bursts into sparking colours. His legs give way.

'Don't let him touch you!' the demon snarls. Its foot lashes out, misses, cracks the floor where it lands.

_One heartbeat to hear the calls; sounds that are too weighted to comprehend._

Dean and Sam are screaming, pinned mockingly against the cold, stone walls. Screaming with words that mean something. Bodies no more use than a severed limb. They are screaming at Castiel. He tries to ignore them and find the anger once again, its weak and shivering inside him now and its the only fuel he has.

The demon snarls, wraps fingers into his hair and connects it's fist again. Castiel fumbles just as a foot cracks sharply into tender skin and softening ribs. The church echoes with pitiful gasps. Almost blind, Castiel thrashes out again and manages to glance a blow across the demons leg. It stumbles, shrieking manically. Twisting in the air as it falls, it flails at him.

And then Castiel is aware of nothing but steely fingers ripping across his back.

_One heartbeat to feel the agony; one heartbeat to be swallowed whole._

Castiel screams soundlessly. The spark disappears. He is empty.

Then sight and sound and logic dissipate, and the world submits itself to maddening chaos. Floors and walls and demons and _SamandDean_ vanish into smoke. The soulless exhaust of a demons true form, thick and greasy, forces its way down his throat; smouldering, clotting, cloying, chocking darkness. It burns where it touches, corrupting and consuming. He is engulfed.

He is lost.

_One heartbeat given to nothing._

The spark coughs to life. The spark flares in white hot fury.

_One heartbeat gasped again._

And Castiel _burns_.

Around him, the air rumbles with the explosion of ash. The demon screams, shrieks and squeals; an indignant cretin braying desperately in its last moments. No one way expulsion for it to live again, it is literally ripped outwards back into the air. The black smoke hangs like a cloud and from deep inside thunder builds. The smog shivers and fractures with a spiderweb of brilliant white veins. They crack and split as the screams pitch unbearable.

The demon ruptures apart like a firework.

And Castiel rises through the ashes.

He has stopped breathing now, has stopped thinking, stopped living. The pulse beats unsteady, a trembling flicker that may snap at any second. Muscles are forced to obey him, blood is forced to keep pumping because all Castiel feels is the fury of the unspoken. And its _his fury_ to wield.

He strikes the palm of his hand sharply into another demons throat, she buckles and lets out a chocking squeal. He can sense another one hissing behind. Him and them, they're all thats left. A sound filters through, Dean and Sam still screaming. The demons are half fallen, staggering clumsily to their stolen feet.

Castiel blinks stinging sweat away, and snatches a breath. Oxygen burns through him, makes his whole body tremble. He raises a hand, its heavy as lead and wont stop _shaking_. His fingers aren't working properly, wont close, feel thick and numb. His hands are covered in blood, freshly seeping through the gauze. Perhaps it belongs there. Hasn't he always carried blood on his hands?

Sam and Dean hang before him, eyes thrown wide in the clawing dimness. Lips shape around the syllables of his name, theres dirt on their faces. Castiel weakly pushes out of himself again, sends silent impulses flashing towards them; they race and catch along the invisible threads of the demons power. Castiel can see webs as strong as iron, they lace and cocoon, pinning Sam and Dean captive.

He keeps pushing.

The threads tingle with the surge of his weak grace, it bunches like dewdrops across the invisible meshing. Castiel swallows bile, tries to find his old serenity. He is wind and he is light, he's a knifes edge and he can _slice_. The connection is weak, the extension is weak, Castiel is _so weak_, but he forces everything he has into imperfect sharpness.

'Cas!'

A hand like iron clamps around him from behind, rips him backwards and slams him onto the floor. His head cracks sharply, a tilde wave of white needles traverse across his skull. The demon shrieks above him, baring down with seething outrage. But it doesn't matter, its already done, his bloodless fingers have snapped closed and Dean and Sam have been wrenched free.

* * *

They drop, feet smacking sharply onto the stone floor. Little shock waves of protesting nerves shoot up Dean's spine, he's gunna feel that one tomorrow. _And they will make it to tomorrow_. Not even a pause for breath, he shoots out a hand and grips Sam's shoulder, tugging him close for a split second before shoving him towards the advancing demon.

Sam uses the momentum, pulls back a fist and canons it into the demons face. Its almost possible to see the muscles along his arm tense and contract as the punch ricochets. Dean, barely aware of himself, is already running. His whole body becomes an attack, tenses, springs, and slams himself into the demon straddling Cas.

All three are flung sideways and spill over the floor. Deans body is up and striking, coiled fist pounding into stomach and face, but his mind is on Cas, watching with pained heart as he drags himself onto his stomach. There's a shriek and a crackle of embers spurting. Sam's on the floor, wrenching the knife out of the demon. It splutters, spasms, then lies still... now just a woman once more.

_Just one left_.

It curses and wrenches itself from Deans hold. Its a race as it struggles to its feet, its a stand off as it stares them down. The demon hisses, spares a hateful glance around the desecrated church. Sam is ready, fingers white around the knife. Dean is ready, hands still curled. Cas is on the floor, still struggling to breathe.

With a snap the demon moves, its fist finds Dean, striking hard and fast. His head wrenches backwards and he stumbles just as a second hit lands, coppery blood blossoms over his tongue.

But then the body takes over, a heel of a hand pounds relentless; abdomen, ribs, chest, throat. Dean ducks and hooks an iron arm around the struggling thing, pinning its shoulders, rendering it helpless. And of course Sam is there, barely inches away, chest heaving, eyes engulfing. The knife slides in, nestling between ribs. A hallowed moan rips from the demons throat and it lights up with a scream.

A wet thud as it drops.

And with gentle ease, silence slips back into the church.

_A few heartbeats to settle; to give proof that you're alive._

Sam is the first to move, dropping to one knee and grabbing Castiels shoulder. His touch is firm and solid, and Cas struggles to look like it doesn't break him.

'Cas, you good?'

He blinks away blood and sweat, tries to push reassurance into his face. 'Hello, Sam,' he answers purposefully.

Dean just stares.

He realises, belatedly, that its something akin to shock. That, yes, he had been holding on to some faint hope, its not like the demons had wanted to kill them, _not till he returns_, but he hadn't been expecting… well, _Cas_. Because not anything he'd seen before; not angels or gods or leviathan, could compare to Castiel burning a demon apart from the inside out.

'Hey,' Sam answers, helping him up. 'Woah, okay? You're just full of surprises.'

Cas staggers hopelessly to his feet, gets lost along the way and somehow buckles before he's even properly righted. Sam nearly goes over with him, but strains backwards with another, 'woah!'. Cas pauses, momentarily collects himself, eyes unfocused and breathing far to laboured.

And Dean just stares.

But then with a snap, sharp blue irises fix onto him. And _there he is_, Castiel laid bare before him, waiting, _just waiting_. Dean takes a breath, matches the stare, and… and anything hidden within is suddenly buried in an avalanche of anger

'What the hell, Cas?!' he explodes. 'I told you to wait!'

Sam shoots him a look as Castiel untangles himself and shakily finds his feet. 'Yes,' he replies tersely, 'you, of course, were managing fine without me.'

'Thats not the point! Look you're…' he waves his hand and gestures at the angel.

'Broken,' Cas fills in the void. He looks fervently at Dean, eyes flashing something new, but his voice holds no anger amongst its exhaustion. Theres blood matted in his hair.

'I know, Dean,' he says. 'I'm tired and I'm weak, I'm hurting and angry and…' his eyes skitter away but Dean can fill the silence with words aplenty;_ hopeless, lost, in pain. You're choking; drowning in this strange silent sorrow that I don't know how to fix_. Castiel refocuses his gaze, 'you expect me to simply sit on it? The weight of… Sometimes its to much,' he falls silent, defeated by his own inability to explain.

'We never said to sit on it! You _deal_ with it.'

'This _is_ me dealing.'

'Punching some demons and nearly getting yourself killed?!'

A little falter, but to little to be hesitation. 'I'm _angry.'_

'Fine! Thats fine. But it doesn't mean you go around putting yourself in harms way.'

His face shifts into hopeless confusion. 'Then what would you have me do?!'

'Talk to us!' Dean snaps. He feels Sam by his side, knows hes probably looking gentle pity at Castiel, but all Dean can feel is bewildered frustration. 'Let us help, just _talk to us_.'

Cas slips his eyes down to the ground. 'I can't.'

'Damn it-' Dean grinds his hand into his forehead because its the same old story. 'Can't or wont, Cas?!'

'Can't!'

Its a finality, echoing fiercely through the church. Dean blinks at him, suddenly turned to stone. Castiel quivers before him, deep bruises still spiralling slowly around flashing eyes. Sam stands wordless, giving nothing and taking nothing, and Dean just... He wants to scream more, wants to lash out, wants to run because Castiel is _burning_.

And then the impact of the words hit him, an aftershock thick and heavy. _can't_. Dean thinks of metal spikes, of savage wiring drills puncturing flesh and ripping through. _can't_. He thinks of heaven and of angels and their ungraspable militancy; what pitiful family values they have to call someone brother and then command them to die. _can't_. Dean thinks of their perfection, their demand for cold control.

_can't_.

Because a lobotomy is a human thing for humans to suffer; it alters the mind, reshapes thoughts and feelings. But angels are not a human brain. Angels are grace and light, impulse and eternity and _obedience_.

And then Dean understands.

And Castiels eyes grow wide in quiet, painful relief. _He can't_, Deans thoughts scream_, he can't talk about it. _They forced their way into him, ripped him open and left him exposed. They took everything away, did an unspeakable _something_, and left him with nothing but a command of silence that _he had no choice but to obey_.

And then when they were done they turned their heads and threw him away.

And Cas says, 'I'm sorry, Dean.'

And Dean opens his mouth...

And not even words can creak out.

And then the ground rumbles. The air groans. Sam yells with full fury. The quaint and ordinary church floor heaves and retches as the sky outside spirals ashen vortexes. A thousand clamouring voices fill the air, they shudder with their weight and intensity. Somehow Sam's beside him, forcing the knife through his forgotten fingers. Dean moves his hand numbly, grips the handle even though he can't feel. The whole world gurgles and churns, imploding jolts and explosive wrenches, and all they can think of is St Mary's Convent and the day that Lucifer rose.

* * *

_Cas is such a bamf._

_There's significance to the falling star by the way (you can probably guess from the finale (OH MY GOD THE FINALE) but this has been in my head since long before that :P). And f__or anyone fearful, don't worry, what happened to Cas will eventually be revealed and explained in full (with much painful angst) but for now you're gunna have to be as clueless and lost as Sam and Dean._

_Thanks as always guys._


	16. Lockdown

_Hey guys, remember when I used to update regularly? *cries into week-old pizza*_

_My busy busy life has finally finally ENDED. So here I stand and vow on Crowleys poor dead taler that I WILL GET THIS STORY MOVING AGAIN. We have a chapter here, and on my word another chapter will be with you by the end of the week, so lets do this! Keep pestering me guys, I respond well to mild and obscure threats (I respond even better to reviews, if you feel like being really nice.)_

* * *

**Lockdown**

Castiel stirs

The world blurs into shadows around him, shapes that hold movement his empty eyes cannot follow. By the time it stars reforming, blurring back into light and colour, Castiel remembers.

_Festering bodies on the floor and the demons SCREAM. Pitching wails, black smoke pouring a tsunami towards them. MASTER. They call. MASTER. Shrieking and heaving and ripping and there are people here. A man who used to be a demon, crying and shaking and pleading. Bright white souls snatch him, pull him backwards. He knows demons are pressing close, burrowing inside his head. Tearing. Ripping. He cringes away, cowers against the warm light of the souls. He is whimpering and afraid. The demons scream. Agony ruptures itself open squeezing the life out of him._

_Then blackness_.

'I know you can hear me you son of a bitch…'  
'… c'mon man, its wake-up time…'

Inside his head he responds, but his body fails to listen. Pressure points appear in darkness, touch without source, and he knows he's being gently shaken.

'… Cas?'

_yes_, he thinks but all his body does is tremble.

'Cas, c'mon.'

Trying to find small focus, he pushes his energy into cracking open his eyes. Deans face swims before him. His mouth says, 'hey', and a few seconds later the sound registers. Castiel forces his eyes open further, inhales the stale air. Dean's face goes slack for a moment before creeping into a faded grin. Then it drops and the mask is back in place.

'You're an idiot.'

If he had strength he would nod. But, like so many times before, whatever strange source of power inside him has shrivelled away to nothing. So he remains, slumped against the cold stone of the wall. But he understands numbly the worry and concern, though they are not his. He understands frustration and hardened responsibility, though they don't belong to him. The fingers gripping him, clinging as though he may dissolve, they are not his either. But he understands them.

'I mean, look at you,' Dean accuses. 'You're a mess.'

Castiel says nothing, but its a nothing borne of understanding. Knots and corners and lurid confusion are slowly smoothing themselves out in his mind. Dean is… protectiveness. Hope, pity, fear, strength, worry, sorrow, anger, _anger_. He'd forgotten the constant anger, how deep it lies buried, how every time Dean overrides it he becomes a new miracle. Because he's always angry. And for a creature like that, to hold the love he does, he is so much more than righteous.

'Hey,' Deans voice cuts through, 'you spacing out on me again?'

'Yes,' Castiel answers before he's even comprehended the question. He shakes his head, meets Deans eyes, weakly overlays turgid confusion with apologetic attention.

Dean says, 'the hell they do to you?' then falters.

He was ready for the question, knew it would rear its ugly head. The bite is just as strong, though he takes special care to keep his hands unclenched. Special attention to override the flinch. But regardless, he can still feel the unwelcome choking thickness. It claws heavy relentless in his throat and through his brain.

Deans gaze snaps taught, his face frozen as he blurts out, 'sorry, never mind. I get it now, you can't talk- you don't have to-'

'Sorry,' Cas says.

And Deans face falls.

Then the church breathes; a groan, long and agonising creaks through its scorched frame. It almost seems like the walls and ceiling are bending inwards, threatening to snap. Little clumps of dust patter down, depositing themselves in sporadic piles on the floor. The sound ceases almost as suddenly as it began, leaving only echoes of silence.

Castiel watches blearily as Dean straightens and glances round. Pieces begin to fit together. The church has been barricaded. Pews and benches, or whats left of them, thrown haphazardly against the door. Sam is securing them even now, half his face is smeared with blood and dust, smudged grey and dirty red. Deans knuckles are torn, bruises already forming across his jaw. Theres three new bodies on the floor.

'What happened?' Castiel's voice cracks.

Dean pulls himself to his feet and ignores him for favour of checking the door, but Sam glances over, his face somehow pleased, even if just for a moment, to see Castiel awake. He gestures to the high windows, blotch patchworks of stained glass.

'See for yourself.'

Through the patterns of colour a dark shape flashes past. Its distorted image twists like a snake, and the delicate panels rattle in its wake. Castiel feels the pathetic sliver of his grace instinctively swell with anger, it sends stabbing pains through his chest. Its a small blessing the cold stones have numbed the newly torn skin of his back, otherwise it might have been to much. The demon snakes past the window again.

'Theres a whole swarm outside,' Sam explains. 'Only two of them had meatsuits and they attacked. They, uh, killed the woman you saved but we got them after that. The others wouldn't enter the church so we managed to barricade ourselves in.'

'Sacred ground,' Cas says before his brain does.

'Which is great and all but now were good and trapped like rats,' Dean gives and upended pew a savage kick. 'Those smokey bastards aren't going anywhere till we do.'

Sam pushes his hair out of his face, further smearing the dirt and blood. 'Better than we were before.'

'Ha. Hardly.'

'Dean, we were pinned against the wall about to lose our entrails. Trust me, this is better.'

Dean mutters, 'yeah, for how long?' but he doesn't argue further, just fiddles more with the barricade, loads and re-loads his gun, stays pointlessly distracted. Castiel follows his movements blankly before Sam calls out to him.

'Cas…' he's standing by the pile of bodies in the centre of the room. The one the demons made. 'Whats this about? Doesn't quite look like a ritual, but some of it seems familiar.'

Again his mouth seems to talk without him. Maybe these aren't even his words. 'Deep magic. A reverse of a devils trap,' his hand numbly points around the room, pointing out the little hexagonal markings. In corners, on the ceiling. 'Hell spawn are not held within it, they're _safe_ within it. Nothing may harm them,' his throat burns with every word.

'A safe zone?'

'Level up,' Dean mutters, 'no wonder the demon bomb didn't work.'

'Looks complicated,' Sam peers at the body parts all meticulously piled. 'Bet no ordinary demon would know about this, otherwise they'd all be doing it.'

'So were dealing with higher ups,' Dean follows. 'Lilith, Alistair, Yellow-Eyes-'

'-Abadddon.'

'Solas,' they finish together and glance at Cas.

Deep in the distance the earth and sky join together in a mournful brontide of thunder. The little church creaks again, laboured breaths threatening to cease. Then theres a whimper and a shriek and suddenly a small, unsteady man is scrambling to his feet.

'Demons!' he chokes wildly before lurching unsteadily across the room. Sam lets out a 'woah' and tries to catch him, Dean just mutters, 'here we go.'

'Th-there are more coming. More demons! There are more out there. There was one in my head- in _me_- I was-'

'Deep breaths,' Dean says.

Sam places a hand on the mans shoulder as he briefly hyperventilates and Castiel finally places him. He's the man who was saved; one of the possessed. A twisted demon who Castiel drove a shivering spark of grace into. He burned it all away, the demon was vaporised by his own weak light leaving only the man in its wake. Well good, one life saved. Tally that against the millions he's taken.

'Demons!' he pipes again, blinking incredulously at the brothers.

'Uh,' says Sam. 'Yeah, from what I could make out I'd say at least eight,' his voice echoes round the room.

Dean pulls his eyes from the window. 'Cas?'

'Seventeen,' Castiel says blearily.

'Sev- no, wait. Wait. Wait... What in our fathers name is going on? Who are you two, who is he, _what_ is he?' the man darts furtive eyes at them, at the windows, at Castiel who blinks slowly at this new enigma, 'you,' he continues breathlessly, 'you destroyed the, the demon. How did you? What did you do to me?'

Sam explains. 'Demons. Heaven, hell, angels, demons, pretty sure you know all about them,' he eyes the mans dog collar sympathetically. 'Throw in some other stuff like ghosts and vampires and welcome to our lives.'

'Vamp-'

'Whats your name?'

'Mi- Mitchell,' he replies immediately. He's short and a little round, and has far too much energy to fit into his small frame. It spills out of him in strange, twitchy movements. He blinks far to much and far to fast. 'The demons. They possessed… I couldn't fight them, what they did, what _I _did… I prayed-'

'Fat lot of goof that'll do you,' Dean mutters. Sam shoots him a look.

Their voices mingle together in echoes and Castiel tries to find some constant, a through line he's supposed to be following… but he can't seem to stop staring at his hand. It's bloodstained and unsteady. Something is wrong. He tries to ignore Sam and Dean. He tries so hard it nearly works. Because if they're not here he can't hurt them. _They're not real_, he tells himself. Except that never used to work. Why would it start now? This is his hand. It held a sword before and slit throats with beautiful precision. If they came, if they came again… if they gave the command, even now-

He clenches it tighter to stop the shaking.

Where has all the anger gone? Why is he sitting here with nothing left? It had been angular and sharp and painful but at least it was a goddamn certainty. It was fuel, not fumes, to his fire. But now its burned away to nothing and he's left in a charred crater. Empty and hollow.

_Focus, Castiel_, he tells himself_._ He tries to concentrate on Sam and Dean. They're talking about… they're talking. Problems with the- everything. Imminent death perhaps-

_whats wrong?_

Castiel screws his eyes shut, feels the pinching stabs of his bruised flesh pressing together. Plunges into darkness and watches frantic static swarm his vision.

_whats wrong?_

With the anger gone there is nothing left but a gaping hole. A wound that is quickly and venomously growing wider. In a small defiled church, then thin fibbers of Castiel still clinging together finally break apart.

'-and this is Cas. Castiel. He's-'

Mitchell gasps. 'Castiel the angel?'

Sam blinks. 'You _know_ him?'

'I'm a servant of God,' he answers thickly. 'I know all of his children, their duties and their histories, the archangels and the-'

_No_.

'I'm not an angel,' Cas blurts, _please make him stop talking_. Dean glowers and Sam glances at him, thin-lipped.

Mitchells round face falls. 'Oh…'

'You bet your ass he is,' Dean corrects sharply. 'Straight up bonafide cloud-hopper.'

_I'mnotpleaseyoudon'tunderstand. _But Cas is just too tired to say anything, he lets his head drift backwards until it hits the wall with a soft _thunk_. Sam works his mouth and glances at the high windows. Dean shifts his gun, glowering at the church because anything is easier than glowering at the angel. Mitchell, however, is watching Castiel with strange intent.

'So what are you?' he asks.

Castiel blinks. He thought maybe it didn't matter anymore, when the angels took him away. After what… it didn't matter what he was. But then Heaven cast him down and from the numb emptiness he had emerged like lightning, not human, and certainly not an angel, but he's world-weary enough to know that simply being 'Castiel' isn't enough.

He allows his memories to unravel. They are thick, dark and tainted. How much have they been twisted? Or maybe they've always been like this… they flare and decay and overwhelm with a stench that burns his throat.

_What are you?_ Not an angel, nor a brother anymore. Not a guardian or a friend. He was a soldier once; a warrior, leader, betrayer and blasphemer. He rebelled. He was spy and a traitor and a liar… a killer, a torturer, a conquer, a slaughterer… He was a monster…

Then he knows the answer, and speaks it calmly into the quiet.

'A murderer.'

And after that there is only deadened silence.

* * *

Two agonising hours later, Sam marches up to Dean. He's crouched in a corner picking dirt from his fingers.

'So,' he starts, Dean's jaw clenches, 'I'm gunna skip the part where I remind you how completely stupid and reckless you are.'

'Wow.'

'Driving halfway across country and just storming in without,' he counts off his fingers, 'a plan, preparation, or even _any_ idea what you were up against? Dragging Cas into this with the way he is? Hell, dragging _me_ into this.'

'Thought you said you were gunna skip it?'

'Oh, these are the footnotes.'

Dean sneers, 'well thanks.'

'You're a dick,' Sam says, then slides down the wall to sit next to him.

In the unhappy silence Dean breathes in slowly and softly lets it go. 'Yeah,' he answers quietly.

Sam nods, 'what do we do?'

Dean casts a vague glance around the room. 'Thought you'd've guessed by now: fuck all.'

'No not… not about this.'

A poignant pause.

'You mean Cas?'

'I mean Cas.'

'We don't to anything,' Dean says firmly.

'Dean…'

'What the hell we supposed to do? Guy can't talk about it, got that angel-mind-lock whatever the crap, and we're holding up in a shitty little church with seventeen demons outside. We'll deal with it later.'

'Later?'

'We need to get out of this mess, and get out _alive_. Priorities.'

Sam holds the silence for a moment, then says, 'I think you should talk to him.'

'Sure,' Dean nods emphatically, 'sure. Its a good thing I baked these cookies earlier. D'you think he'll prefer chocolate or raspberry?'

'I'm serious.'

'So am I! Sammy, we need to be sensible, we need to hold it together. We need to be calm and focused.'

'I just think-'

'We don't have time!'

'Dean, right now? We've got all the time. While we're trapped here we've got nothing else to do.'

'Sam, look-'

'You can't pretend you haven't noticed. You can't pretend he's not hurting.'

'He's been hurting since we found him!'

'Not like this! No like- somethings broken in him Dean, somethings happened and I don't know when but it has. And you know it.'

Dean mutters, 'we'll deal with it later.'

'Sure,' Sam gives a sad shrug, 'and what if there isn't one?'

* * *

Three hours after that, Mitchell sidles up to Cas.

For a while he just sits nearby, watching purposefully. Its not like the room is big enough for any sense of privacy, any conversation is easily carried and the echoes pick up even the softest voices. You'd have to be half out of it, like Cas, not to hear every little thing being said. But still, it looks like the man wants to have some deep, meaningful conversation with the way he's steeling himself. Dean watches warily.

'So…' Mitchell begins, nudging himself closer, 'if you're not an, an agent of heaven…' he chews his lip. Castiel blinks at him. 'I mean, you _are_. I felt you when you destroyed the demon. I felt the light, I've… I've never felt anything so holy before.'

A small distressed whine escapes Cas' throat.

'But if you you think you're a murderer, then… well what do you want to do?'

Pause.

Except its not a pause, because a pause is a promise of more words to come. Its a silence.

'Do you... want atonement?'

Castiel lowers his eyes. 'No,' he finally says. 'I don't deserve that.'

'Everyone deserves to be absolved, no matter what their sin,' Mitchell leans forward slightly, honest eyes wide. 'Everyone, Castiel.'

Cas gives a weary one shouldered shrug.

'Y'know, I don't think you're a murderer,' Mitchell declares. He speaks in absolution, like his word is conviction to the world. Eyes wide and wetly blinking and shimmering in faint awe. 'I mean,' he continues, 'I don't know you but… I _know_ you. You're not a murderer.'

Cas blinks away dust, 'I was called a hero once.'

'Yeah?'

'After I murdered my brother.'

A horrific silence. Sam clenches his teeth, Dean's glower could destroy cities. He directs it at Mitchell with full force but the man simply twists his face into sadness. 'Was it... just?' he asks hopefully.

'No, it was murder,' Castiel sighs and lifts a hand to rub his right eye. Except it doesn't quite reach. It hovers inches before his face and trembles.

'What was his name?'

Dean nearly punches the bastard. _Stop talking about it you fucker._ But Cas just drops his hand, all fight just… beaten out of him.

'Samandriel.' Then even quieter, 'he didn't deserve it.'

'You're not a murderer,' Mitchell tries with gentle sternness.

Castiel looks up at him. 'You're a good man,' is his only response.

* * *

Thirty minutes later Dean's pacing is interrupted by Sam. He grabs his arm and frantically pulls him towards the door.

'Samandriel,' he says, hushed and fast. He gives a furtive glance to Cas but the angel seems to be gone, eyes unfocused, body unmoving save for the slow rise and fall of his chest. His face is still bruised, fresh cuts on his cheek and jaw, bloody nose, unkept hair, clothes filthy and bloody too. His hands and knuckles are raw, his back is leaking blood.

Dean blinks. 'What?'

'Samandriel, Dean, the angel we tried to save?'

'Yeah, I know,' he squirms in his shoes. 'Whats your point?'

'I mean, you heard him… he thinks he murdered him. But remember Cas said he was acting in self defence? But he wouldn't just flat out stab his brother in self defence.'

'Whats your _point_, Sam.'

'So he was already under heavens control. All that time and we didn't…' he cringes in his own guilt. 'His eye, remember? They'd probably already dril-'

Dean walks away. Because he's already knows.

* * *

Eight hours in and their air is stifling. Sam checks and rechecks the barricade, not long ago a demon screamed its way into the room and launched itself at Mitchell. The man had screamed and curled onto the floor while the brothers stood above him fending off the putrid smoke. It had risen to the ceiling and coiled around the beams shrieking before they finally managed to exorcise it.

Now the church is silent again, save for the occasional streak of smoke past the windows outside. Castiel is unconscious, has barely stirred for hours, not since Mitchell had spoken to him. And as much as Dean doesn't want to agree, Sam had been right. It wasn't the injuries (severe as they were) that were crushing the angel… Dean sighs and plonks himself onto a pew.

Mitchell sidles up to him.

'Yeah, you know what?' Dean says before he can speak. 'I'm not going there.'

'He doesn't think he's an angel though,' Mitchell persists. 'Thats… thats big, right? I'm not talking about your feelings, I'm talking about his.'

'Okay,' Dean rubs his face. 'I get that you're trying. But just don't. You don't know anything. Heaven's not the utopian place you think it is, its full of dicks and they kicked him out, then took him back, then kicked him out again. Harder. He's been though shit. And he's an angel pure and simple.'

Mitchell nods rapidly. 'Sure, I believe you. Heck I think I've seen enough proof myself. But its not about what you are, its what you identify as.' He gives a wave of his arm, 'and for all he is or has been, what Castiel believes himself to be is a murderer.'

'We're all murderers,' Dean snaps, throwing his arm towards the bodies on the floor. 'After today, you're one too.'

Mitchell blinks then gives him a strange look, eyes considering. Dean doesn't like the pity there, the man's twitchy righteousness sets him on edge. He doesn't need to be preached at on how to help his friend.

'I am…' Mitchell hums in consideration. 'I am a man, I… am a son, I'm a brother and a husband. I'm an uncle and one day I'll be a father. I'm a servant of god and I'm a friend. I'm a gardener, don't give me that look. I'm a lover of books, I'm a fantastic cook,' he smiles slightly. 'I'm all of these things Dean, all of these things. And, yes, as you so callously pointed out, now I suppose I'm a murderer as well. But I'm all of these things first. Being a murderer comes at the end of a long line of other things I know I am, and its these things that make me _who_ I am. What does Castiel believe makes him who he is? What does he believe he's good for?'

Dean breathes dust and it coats his throat, he's uncertain now. 'Murdering…?'

The mans face falls, and Dean knows he hasn't quite understood.

'No, Dean,' his soft voice matching his eyes. '… I don't think for a second you believe that.'

And he doesn't. He really doesn't. But he suddenly doesn't know what else to say. In front of this man, with his certainty and belief, Dean's nothing but a child. And it strikes him, in a cold shudder, that he's felt like this once before, when an angel walked towards him in a rain of fire and told him he was important.

'Then what?' he croaks.

'What does Castiel think he's good for?' Mitchell shakes his head, 'what are murderers good for?'

No answer springs forth.

'What does society believes murderers are good for?' suddenly Dean doesn't want to know. 'To be made an example of, Dean… Punishment, death, loathing and hatred. Things to be spat at for their sinful deeds.'

Dean shuts down.

'So… maybe stop trying to tell him to be an angel again, and maybe stop trying to pretend things will get better, and actually just convince him he's worth a damn.'

* * *

Nine hours in Dean can't take any more.

He pulls himself up and storms over to Cas, stands there and- and… doesn't know what to do… doesn't know what to say… he just stands wordlessly above him and tries to calm his heavy breaths and thudding heart. Because he's just figured out whats so wrong. Figured out what burns him sharp as ice. Angels aren't supposed to… what, feel? No, he's pretty sure they do, even if its just contempt for humanity or selfish self-preservation. Even if it's a muted shade of humanities colours, angels are definitely supposed to feel.

But they're not supposed to _hurt_.

Ageless, endless, eternal holy creatures. They are not human. Filled with intent and purpose, an existence of absolution. Faith. No doubt exists for them. They cannot fathom hopelessness or loss, abandon or need. They are _not _human. You can spit at them and rail at them, insult and blame and attack them. You can beat them down and break them in half and they wouldn't crumble.

They're supposed to be above all that.

They're not supposed to hurt.

Castiels hollow eyes crack open, like he could sense Dean standing there. A few heartbeats pass, loud as drums, and Dean watches as he blinks dazedly. He should say something now. He should start. Cas looks so lost. He should say something... and then Cas is squinting upwards and his eyes lock onto Dean, one stark blue in emptiness, the other swathed in bloodshot ruin, bruises and faded blood.

'Dean?' he asks cautiously.

And then the words just tumble out. 'He said you think you're a murderer because murderers should be punished. You want to be punished?'

'Dean...'

'No, man, I get it, atone for your sins and all that crap. How d'you think I felt after hell? After dad died for me?' he takes a breath. 'But c'mon, heaven kicked your ass into oblivion, don't you think you've been punished enough?'

'I think I'm...' Cas briefly lowers is head, draws in breath, makes a decision… loses it and falls silent. His eyes hold painful guilt and Dean wishes he knew why.

'It's- It's not about that anymore, its not about punishment. You were doing things, weren't you? You said you were helping people? Thats better than punishing yourself. Don't- you don't need to do that. All you need to do is forgive yourself. So just… forgive yourself, okay?' ladies and gentlemen, the worst argument point in history.

Castiel looks sadly at him.

'Yes,' he says and his voice is hollow.

Dean wants to punch something.

'You did bad things and you were punished, okay? Punished by heaven, by fate, even by yourself. So you've done all that atonement crap, okay? You are atoned,' he waves his hands in the vain hope it will magically make things better. 'You are forgiven by the world, you just need to forgive yourself. Kinda… get over it sort of thing. I mean, for all that stuff before? Sam's forgiven you, I've forgiven you-'

Castiel flinches.

Dean stops and slowly lowers his hands. 'You knew that right?'

'Yes,' Castiel says quickly to the floor.

'Cas?'

'Yes,' he echoes again. The floor receiving his full attention.

Dean stares at him and feels weight compressing his ribs.

* * *

Eleven hours later and they all sit in empty silence. The sun should be rising, staining the sky with whitewashed flecks of colour. But it has not appeared and the world around their prison stays resolutely dark. Dean, Sam and Cas lean against respective walls, all silent. Mitchell, however, is peering out a window, standing tiptoe on a half shattered pew. It creaks each time he wobbles, which is so frequently its near constant, but he makes to move to jump down, instead leaning forward and smushing his nose against the grimy glass. Dean's about to snap at him when he turns his shiny face to them and says, 'theres a man outside.'

'What?'

'Outside.'

Theres a sharp scrabble as Sam and Dean fight to join him. Mitchell shuffles precariously sideways, almost falls off before Dean absent-mindedly grabs his shirt and yanks him back. The pew creeks unhappily as the brothers shield their eyes to see outside. Through the dirty panels they can see a thin gravel path which curls tidily around the edge of the church. And there on the corner, right where the path disappears round the front, is a man.

He stands calm and still in a mismatched suit. Brown trousers, black shirt, grey jacket, no tie. Like a patchwork attempt to look like a businessman from a body and mind ill suited to be one. Yet here he is, standing in profile to them.

'Demon?' Sam mutters.

The mans head tilts like a bird as he considers something around the corner. The demonic coils of smoke drift lazily around him, infused by some hypnotic sway. Calmly and with no hesitation, the man raises a palm to the sky, the ill-fitting suit riding up in all the wrong places. The demon coils shiver in the night, winding themselves around him affectionately. If they had voices they'd probably be purring.

Then the man balls his hand into a fist.

And every single demon bursts into flames.

The church shakes. Dying, wailing shrieks fill the darkness. Smoke-trails blossom into comets of writing fire. It sudden, un-relentless, ruthless. Its horrific. Jerking uncontrollably backwards, Mitchell falls off the pew with a sharp cry. The brothers don't notice, slack jawed, unblinking, _unbelieving_ as seventeen demons are obliterated in front of them.

The man hasn't moved.

'Not a demon,' Sam croaks.

Dean twists around sharply. 'Cas?!'

He's already on his feet, stock still and focused on the door. _The barricaded door_, Dean madly thinks,_ we barricaded it. We're safe- oh fuck we're not fucking safe_. Castiel is so calm its unnatural. Its maddening. Its beautifully concealed terror.

'Here,' he snaps. '_Now_.'

They obey without question, stumbling away from the window. Sam snatches a whimpering Mitchell and drags him forcefully to the back of the room. They dump him against the wall and turn to the door. Mitchell, them, then Cas in front.

'Who-'

The door explodes. Debris of the barricade burst apart and fall like confetti around the desecrated church. Lighting splits the sky apart, alighting the whole wold with blinding white. High pitched _noise_ pumps thickly into the air. And there he is, standing silhouetted in the doorway.

Every single window shatters into a thousand pieces.


	17. Magma

**Magma**

_The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble! He sites enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!  
_- Psalm 99:1

White hot noise rips its way through the church. Its stones crack, spitting plaster and dust. Its roof bulks, timber creaking in agonised fury. The glass shimmers through the air, a thousand coloured raindrops cascading down to earth. The man stands in the doorway and laughs like a gleeful child.

_Inservio dominus in vita mea_

Unholy brightness bites into their eyes, and in perfect harmony lightning splits the sky apart. Sam and Dean collapse, their shrieks lost in union. Hands are thrown up to shield faces, eyes squeeze shut, mouths contort. Then the air ruptures again. It rips the world apart.

Castiel is perfect stillness within desolation. He hurts not and feels not and Sam and Dean are dying _and he can't take his eyes off the man in the suit_.

The noise rises beyond hearing. Glass being ground on glass, it builds until its no more than agony reverberating around their skulls. Castiel can't… can't- blood swells from the brothers ears as they crumple. Its blinding, maddening. _Its too much_. Their very beings begin to split apart, unending, tumultuous agony.

'You'll kill them!' Castiel screams.

_Servus… servus invitis._

His muscles contract, his body constricts. Inside his ribs his heart throbs unyielding terror. History upon history breaks like waves against him, flooding through his lungs. Memories of unlit murky waters swarth his brain, turgid waste to swallow him whole. His chest stutters. Dizzying, sickening nausea drowns him.

'Please…'

Silence falls.

Like the slow fade out of thunder rubbing away in the distance, the quiet calmly devours the broken world of before. It whets it pallet and swallows them whole, sinking teeth into their flesh, nipping fire in their skulls. In an unnerving way its almost more painful that the noise.

The man in the suit licks his lips, then surveys the desecrated church with politeness. A flick of his hand and the pile of corpses slide away. Along the rubbled and glass stained ground is left a trail of blood and bone. Then he smiles, wide and genuine.

'-uck,' Dean gasps, still crumpled on the floor.

_No_. Castiel thinks in madness._ Stay down_.

He knows what they are thinking, he knows what they will try. He knows them far to well and that has alway been his weakness. Suddenly everything is to real and bright. A mess of broken impulses and fractured selfs, nothing but mutilations, bone and dust now miraculously bathed in light. Like a child he is snatched from those poisonous, waters of turgid memory and hurled painfully into clear azure blue. Everything snaps into place. He remembers all. And he is terrified.

The man begins to walk.

'-uckin ang'l,' Dean words blur into a groan. Sam is uncoiling painfully, forcing his eyes to follow the man. The man they now think is an angel of the lord. And how can Castiel even _try_- his throat is too tight, wont even let him breathe. Because demons do not taint the air with the taste of metal and electricity, but its impossible to miss the stench of sulphur sickly sweet amongst the ozone.

When the man pulls himself to a stop the world does not end, the sky does not fall and the ground does not heave. His light little footsteps shuffle into stillness one toe of each shiny shoe pointing at either brother. But his face, with its fixated eyes, are looking straight ahead, straight at the broken being who stands paralysed before him.

'Castiel,' he says, and his voice is honey.

_Inservio dominus in vita mea_. _Inservio dominus in vita mea._ _No, please, no, let me be stronger than that. Servus invitis. I am the unwilling. Servus invitis. Don't make me hurt them._

'-the hell are you?' Sam slurs.

The man's uneven eyebrows shoot up, 'well now!' he crows, his voice like sunlight. 'You mean you haven't told them about me, blackbird?'

He flicks his hand and Castiel hears a double grunt from behind him. He doesn't need to turn to know, he can feel the raw power like a vice over his shivering body. Dean and Sam are flattened onto the ground, impossible weight bearing down on them. The easy echoes of the church pick up their meek struggles.

'I'm surprised,' the man continues. 'Then again… theres probably very little you're allowed to say,' he smiles. 'How are the headaches?'

'Fuck,' Dean moans again.

Terror unfurls itself, hard and plastic. It is bright pearlescent pain with jagged edges to fiercely lacerate. It starts everywhere at once, buried deep in all corners like little grains of sand. Is seeps like liquid over everything inside, dripping from the throat, pooling in the stomach, freezing solid sickly-pale over the heart, smothering the frantic beats.

He was mindless before. He was a mess of cogs and orders, commands to obey from voices with no owners. He was nothing trapped inside an everything he had no control over. He was already dead. He didn't fear then... but now he is returned to himself and standing before him is the one he wants to call _oppressor_, but his mind still screams _Lord_.

Dean gasps. 'Wha'd'you want?'

'Stay down, boy. Stop struggling. It would be better if you did not.'

If Dean were fire and Castiel lightning, the man is oozing magma; dark and dangerous. Volatile.

'Now,' he says, 'I'm not one for mystery and such, so I'll cut to the chase,' he opens his arms in welcome. 'I am Solas, one of the first-born of Lucifer, knight of Hell.' He grins a little chirpy smile. 'Nice to meet you, Winchesters.'

'-fuck you,' Dean tries to drag himself forward. Solas chuckles lightly.

'Its so hard to make threats with your face in the dirt,' his eyes flicker to Mitchell, almost hidden behind them all. The small man is sobbing, body flattened against the wall.

'Oh! My poor child,' the demon soothes, 'what did they do to you?'

Mitchell only whimpers, memories of the putrid demon burning out of him still lingering in the air. 'Be… begone foul beast,' he whispers bravely.

Solas huffs through his nose, face soft with amusement. Almost conspiratorially, he rolls his eyes at Castiel. They are jet black now, bottomless and vast as an inky ocean, coals of magma still smouldering far in its depts. And Castiel realises what's coming a second before it happens.

With a flick of his hand he snaps Mitchells neck. The crack echoes loud and sharp. The man doesn't even make a sound.

The body slumps.

'No…' Sam groans.

'Now!' Solas goads, eyes slithering back to human, 'since my little bird can't really sing for you, perhaps I can explain a few things. I do love a good old fashioned evil monologue.'

He waves his hand again and a pew slithers towards him. With much prim fussing he seats himself down and crosses his thin legs in their too short trousers. When he is ready he nods to himself, flicks his eyes to Castiel. Pain bursts through his skull. His body goes numb and shuts down. Boneless he folds quietly in on himself.

'What a pitiful sight,' Solas muses, looking at the four figures before him. One dead against the wall, two forced down on their stomachs, blood still wet from their ears and even now they're struggling. And then theres Castiel, who is blinded by the needles digging furrows behind his eyes. He has managed to stay crouching, one hand pressed to his head, the other weakly supporting him on the floor.

'Lets begin children. Me and heaven had a little, hm, understanding,' Solas picks at his nails. 'I say heaven, it was more like Naomi. You've met her, yes? She's such a pleasant creature to work with, surprisingly easy to sway. Anyway, Castiel was involved. Do you already know this?' Dean and Sam make desperate groans, his power pinning their bodies must be excruciating. 'Do stop me if I'm boring you. But, ah, we had a little falling out and now they're hunting me down,' he almost sounds bored, 'and Castiel got thrown down here to be kept out of the way, or because they can't stand the sight of him, same thing really.'

He leans back against the pew, which creaks in obligation. 'And then theres all this mess,' he gestures around the church. 'You probably think its some big ritual, its really not,' when he leans forward, its with exuberant delight. 'It was an interview!'

'Wh…? Inter-?'

'Yes! Some bright-eyed, bushy-tailed demons asked to follow me to glory,' he rolls his eyes, 'or, you know, whatever these kids are saying these days. So I asked them to impress me. I gather they worked out a very complicated protection spell, tricky to do. Imagine how ecstatic they must have been when some Winchesters foolishly wandered into their audition room.'

He stands.

'I was not impressed.'

The pain has lessened and Castiel fights to look up. The church swims in and out of focus, bile rises from his stomach. But then Solas is right there, towering before him. _Inservio dominus in vita mea_. A warm hand snakes out and grips his jaw lightly, fingers soft against his skin.

Dean speaks though gritted teeth. '-swear, y'touch him and your dead.'

'Who? Castiel?' enthusiasm vibrates through his body. 'Yes! The fallen angel of the apocalypse. He who turned his back on brethren and foe alike. All for the sake of helping you two.'

Castiel chokes and Solas releases him instantly. Faint tingling energy still lingers, spreading through his flesh like wildfire. A cacophony of sinful evil stained with holy scars.

'The 'apocalypse is history, you dick, y'should quit living in the past,' Dean growls from the floor. He's managed to push himself up to look fury at the demon. But then Solas' face turns murderous.

'The past, _boy_?' the lights flicker again. 'I am a knight of hell, what do you think my whole purpose was?' he takes a step. Blearily, Castiel shifts his body to try and shield them, 'I was born for one reason and one reason alone, and then _you_…' he bares his teeth, 'not only did you two de-rail the train but you also _went and blew it up_.'

Dean coughs a laugh. 'So what, you're here for revenge? Pretty petty.'

Solas' face abruptly snaps back into pleasantries.

'Nope!' he says lightly, 'not revenge, surprisingly enough. I'm not really the vengeful type, more the… well, what you see is what you get, I guess.' He laughs a little unsteadily as he gestures to his mismatched suit, pudgy belly and spindly legs. 'So, fear not! I just can't find it in me to feel anger at you two snivelling wretches.'

Sam struggles and collapses. '-hen what d'you want?'

'Nothing.' He shrugs lightly, carefree and happy. 'Honest.'

Then his hand snaps out and slams into Castiel. Fingers dig into his filthy shirt and wrench him up from the floor. Castiel swallows a whimper as his limp body is jerked upwards. With a twist of his arm and a piston of his body, Solas brutally flings him away to the left.

'Cas!'

Theres a dull thud when he hits the wall, the echo of which sounds slightly wet as his blood-soaked back slams against the stones. Its funny how he only registers the sound. Like its the only important thing. Theres no pain, no fear. Its swallowed away in feverish adrenaline.

'Or rather…' Solas amends, 'I just wanted to see what had become of him.'

His strange glinting eyes sweep over Castiel, over his shuddering frame in a torn shirt and sweat pants. _Still no shoes_, Cas thinks deliriously. He fights unsteadily against his bodies demand to collapse. But he can't- _No_. He forces himself to stay pressed against the wall, using the cold stones as desperate support.

Solas frowns at him and almost looks sad.

'You got yourself damaged,' he takes a few small steps towards him, 'went and landed with a bit of a bump from what I heard tell.' More steps. 'And then some of my dear followers knocked you about, I disprove of that.' Closer still.

_Ah, theres the fear_. Castiel fumbles, shrinks away.

Solas smiles. 'I didn't ask them to find you, incase you were wondering. But they were so taken with all my stories of you. _What you did_. I'm truly sorry they mocked you, but then… you did kill all of them so I'm taking that as a balancing of injustice.' He nods in amused sympathy. 'Did it make you feel better?'

He lunges forward, so suddenly it seems he might engulf everything in his way. Castiel flinches wildly, his whole body contorted in mindless panic. From somewhere far away he can hear Dean and Sam shout his name. But then he's pressed tightly against the wall and Solas' hand is around his throat.

'Cas!'

'You hurt him I swear-'

'Silence _boy_!' Solas howls. His black eyes flash at them over his shoulder. 'What do you know about it? I never hurt him. I looked after him.' Castiel can't think anymore, blood pounds deafening in his ears. Solas is still talking, words growing faster and more frantic. 'I was kind to him. We made a team. He was good but they kept ruining it. They didn't look after him properly. I said they shouldn't do that. But they did. I helped him. I was good to him. You shouldn't speak of things you don't know, you shouldn't speak to me, I saved your pathetic _life_!'

'_Solas_,' Castiel gags.

The demon turns sharply back to him, face softening as his eyes grow colder. Castiel opens his mouth to speak again but no words will come. His brain throbs blinding pain, his arms and legs are lead. Desperation causes his body to tighten, ragged gasps savage his lungs.

Then strange sensations begin to smooth themselves upon him. It starts at his throat, where the demons hand resolutely clenches. A dim, unhealthy glow begins to seep from his veins, a stink of ozone fills the air. Faint tendrils of smokey light, like steam, rise from his fingers. Castiel struggles weakly, chokes as the hand round his neck begins to pump heat.

'Hush, I'll make you all better,' Solas quietly croons.

With his other hand he reaches up and slowly strokes Castiels jaw, soft and gentle fingers also radiating strange warmth. Castiel shudders as the bruises of his skin begins to seep away. His damaged flesh knits itself whole, threading together, smoothing away cuts and wounds.

A strangled noise escapes him.

The gentle strokes of the demon traverse his skin, travel around his lips, his nose, his cheek. Wherever the warmth touches the injuries tingle and fade. The touch is torturous, it makes his mind howl a primordial scream. His weak grace tries to flare in defence, _no_, and on instant he smothers it.

Solas' wandering hand slides closer to his eye, _his eye_, and his whole body contorts. Terror explodes outwards. Castiels hand snaps forward. With iron grip he clenches at the demons wrist, wrenching the hand away. Solas smiles and wrenches back, twists his arm, effortlessly pins Castiels hand to the wall above his head with agonising force.

'Still touchy I see,' his voice blurs into murmurs, 'its okay, its okay,' and Castiel feels the sickening heat travel round his wrist and fingers. The torn skin of his hand mends itself together but _this is wrong_. Its not healing, its mutating. It's a violation and Castiel can't stop another whimper leave his constricted throat.

'See, I take care of you.'

When the demon finally lets his hand go, it limply falls to his side. When he grasps the other arm, Castiel can do nothing to fight it. His whole body is coursing with strange pulsations he wants to battle. But he is hanging limp and pliant, barely able to breathe. He needs to fight this. His cuts and bruises crackle and knit together, his fractured ribs smooth where Solas' firm touch caress him. The skin on damaged skin is agonising defilement. _No, he needs to fight this before-_

Solas' hand reaches his chest.

It stops and his face widens with calm surprise.

'Well now…' he whispers softly.

Somewhere far in the distance Sam and Dean are still shouting. The bone-crushing weight pressing them down has weakened with the demons new distraction. Sam is up to kneeling, Dean is still on hands and knees, but both their faces are turned towards Castiel. Their eyes are wide and desperate. Even in the dim, bloodstained murk of the church, he can see their mottled green shining with fervent life.

He is so aware of watching them, he almost misses what Solas says.

'The world is ever engulfing,' he foretells, 'life will always feed to death, day will feed itself to night, minutes will feed onto hours,' hungry eyes drag over Castiel, 'and man will feed themselves on man.'

Then Dean chokes, 'tell you what, you're so far up the crazy tree you're shitting leaves.'

And something snaps inside Castiel.

He was angry before, he was hurting and in pain. But now… Maybe its fate, or divinity, or chance, or even just luck, but there it is; something new. Something tiny and weak and terrifying and brave…

Here stands Solas, a yawning chasm with firelight eyes, and he can't beat him. He is weak and pathetic and lost but- But Dean is right; they _have_ punished him; burned, broken, mutilated, violated, they have shattered him to glass and melted the pieces into a statue of their own design. A mirror to reflect their own unholy desires. They did this to him. And they still don't forgive him and he doesn't forgive himself and he never will for as long as a spark of him still burns _and they've made him like that_.

You can't breath life into the moon then curse it for not having the fire of a sun. _You can't force the weight of the world onto my shoulders and then tell me I'm to weak to carry it. You can't force me to believe in ideas you do not keep. I did not break, you broke me. I did not fail, you let me. I did not desolate, you destroyed me. What did you do to me? Why did you do this? How could you do this to me?_

Everything he's done matters. _Everything_ he's done. Good and bad and right and wrong, mistakes and intensions, they are giant and important and matter. They shape him and change him, they are him. All the weight of his misgivings, all the strength of his mistakes. They shouldn't pull him down but push him up. Fire not to consume but to give rise to the fight. They are _his,_ not someone else's to pitilessly torture him with.

For the first time he's not just angry for the world. He's angry for himself. He's _furious_ for himself. And there, underneath it all? All the pain and fear and anger and grief theres something unmistakable, irreversible, unescapable…

_I mean Sam's forgiven you, I forgive you_.

Its belief.

And as much as he might lose faith in himself or in God or in angels or life itself. As long as two boys believe in him… how can he stand to let them down?

Solas frowns, just as electricity sears down Castiels arm. A jolt, a clench, and his fingers close over the cool weight of his blade. Castiel gasps. It sings with pulsating life and he drives it forward. No time to complete an arc, Solas is already jerking back, face contorted in fury. The blade sinks through his thigh like butter.

* * *

_Sorry to any Mitchell fans... Solas is batshit crazy. He's a total creep as well, I bet he had no friends in high school.  
_

___Inservio dominus in vita mea - serve master in my life  
__Servus invitis - unwilling slave_

_Apologies for any mistakes, this is unbeta'd and slightly rushed! Up next: fighting! __And as always, reviews give me happy tingles and make me wanna write more :P_


End file.
